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Harry Kewell: Star quality

March 26, 2014, 3:44 am
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by Roy Hay

Harry Kewell is bringing down the curtain on a stellar career at the end of the current A-League season. It is a pity that he could not make it to what would be his third World Cup in succession, but the body which has inhibited him in the latter stages of his career will not let him deliver the kind of consistent performances demanded by Socceroo coach Ange Postecoglou. Even Melbourne Heart must have been reluctant to offer a new contract, despite the impact he has had on the players around him since he joined the club. So the time is right for one of our all-time greats to step aside.

The NSW U15s in 1994 containing Harry Kewell as well as Brett Emerton, Sebastian Sinozic,
Yane Talcevski, Daniel Ucchino, Michael Cunico, Robert Trajcevski and Adam Brodbeck
He was born in Smithfield in New South Wales of English parents. I first saw him play at Kim Reserve in 1994 with the New South Wales Under-15s who won the national championships beating a very strong Victorian side in the final. The light blues included Brett Emerton, Sebastian Sinozic, Yane Talcevski, Daniel Ucchino, Michael Cunico, Robert Trajcevski and Adam Brodbeck, all of whom went on to have significant careers in the game. Lined up against them were Vince Grella, Danny Allsopp, Simon Colosimo, Rodrigo Vargas, John Maisano, Clayton Bell and Colin Azzopardi. Between them these two talented groups produced most of the Joeys who took part in the Under-17 World Cup in Ghana where Australia pipped Spain on goal difference to qualify from its group behind Nigeria. Brazil proved too good in the quarter-finals and Danny Allsopp was top scorer with 5 goals and Kewell got the other.

Very soon the precocious Kewell was on his way to Leeds United where he began as a wing-back and his powerful engine got him up and down the field following his debut in the first team under Howard Wilkinson. He flourished under George Graham and David O’Leary clocking up over 180 league appearances and scoring 45 goals. On 24 April 1996, Eddie Thomson gave Kewell his first Socceroo cap against Chile in Antofagasta. Eddie was shrewd enough to know that Kewell could have been tempted to play for England so it was vital to ensure that he was aligned with the Green and Gold. Most sources want to claim that as a result he was the youngest player to be capped by Australia, but this is not true. Duncan Cummings was months younger when he made his debut against China in 1975, scoring within minutes of coming on as a substitute. That was the first of Cummings’ two games for Australia, while Kewell was to go on to amass 56 games and score 17 goals.

From Leeds, Kewell transferred to Liverpool where he was to win a series of trophies including the European Champions League in 2005, when injury resulted in his substitution before his team-mates produced a miraculous second half fight-back against AC Milan and won the cup on penalties. He played just under 100 league games for the Reds scoring a dozen goals. In 2008 he moved to Galatasaray in Turkey, captaining the club and performing various feats including a couple of matches at centre-half when injuries to other players occurred.

Meanwhile he took part in Australia’s unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the World Cup in 1997, scoring critical goals away from home and at the MCG against Iran. His heroics were not enough and Australia lost on the away goals rule. It was an equally sad story in 2001 as a home win over Uruguay thanks to a Kevin Muscat penalty was cancelled out by the three-nil loss in Montevideo. Opinions differ as to Kewell’s contribution to the away leg. My feeling was that he left Mark Viduka unsupported in the striking role failing to be close enough to the big man who had three top class defenders marking him for most of the game. In 2005 however Kewell came into his own with an inadvertent shank that set up Marco Bresciano for the goal at home to Uruguay and putting away the first of the successful penalty kicks. Then in Germany in the finals he scored the decisive second goal against Croatia, but then had to miss the Italy game in the round of 16 thanks to what was suggested to be gout at the time.

Harry Kewell has just scored against Croatia at the 2006 World Cup finals.
Kewell backed up again in 2010 in South Africa though he was perhaps harshly sent off for blocking a goal-bound effort against Ghana in the second match and hence badly missed then and in the victory over Serbia. Kewell also contributed in Australia’s Asian Cup campaigns in 2007 and 2011.

He was named as Australia’s greatest ever player in a poll in 2012 which inevitably focused on recent stars. He certainly generated the charisma which attracted people to the game in an age of celebrity. So when he returned to Australia in 2011 and signed with Melbourne Victory on a contract which gave him an element of his income based on the number of extra fans he attracted to the game, there is no doubt that he boosted the profile of the club and the A-League. However by now his body was giving him less chance to demonstrate his talent, though as the first season ran its course his contribution on the field improved significantly. After the season he returned to England and then played briefly with Al-Garafa in Qatar before coming home for what turned out to be his final fling at Melbourne Heart. Again injuries cruelled his season, but he deserves to go out with a flourish in Heart’s final game of the season against Western Sydney Wanderers on 12 April.

Kewell attracted a fair amount of controversy over his long career, partly explicable as a product of the tall poppy syndrome, but some self inflicted or a result of the agents with whom he dealt. Also the injuries he suffered were not appreciated by those furthest from the man himself and his abrasive or dismissive attitude to the media did not always work to enhance his image. Nevertheless, he has been a major contributor to Australia’s recent success, as key member of the ‘golden generation’. In time people will be able to evaluate his career more dispassionately and with greater perspective, but he is certainly one to be considered when listing the players who have lifted the profile of the game in this country.
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NPL Round 2 Results

March 30, 2014, 2:45 pm
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NPL
ROUND 2: 
Oakleigh Cannons FC 2 (D. Bosnjak 2) Heidelberg United SC 1 (K. Sheppard 1)(HT: 0-1)
Pascoe Vale SC 0 Melbourne Knights FC 2 (J. Colosimo 2)(HT: 0-0)
Port Melbourne Sharks SC 2 (K. Braniff 1, K. Ibrahim 1) South Melbourne FC 3 (L. Minopoulos 2)(HT: 1-1)
Goulburn Valley Suns FC 2 (C. Carley 1, K. Sarkies 1) Ballarat Red Devils SC 3 (D. Swinton 2, M. Trigger 1)(HT: 1-1)
Dandenong Thunder SC 1 (M. Millar 1) Green Gully SC 0(HT: 0-0)
Northcote City FC 2 (J. Munoz 1, W. Dekker 1) Bentleigh Greens SC 3 (L. Jeggo 1, A. Proia 1, J. De Abreu 1)(HT: 1-2)
Werribee City FC 2 (J. Groenewald 1, S. Cudrig 1) Hume City FC 1(HT: 1-1) 
ROUND 1:
Bentleigh Greens SC  Ballarat Red Devils SC (HT: 0-0) (Washed Out)

NPL1
ROUND 2: 
Richmond SC 1 (J. Stefanou 1) Springvale White Eagles FC 0(HT: 0-0)  ,
Sunshine George Cross SC 1 (B. Lojanica 1) Avondale Heights SC 0(HT: 1-0)  ,
Brunswick City SC 3 (D. Vithoulkas 1, D. Sadik 1, N. Terezakis 1) Dandenong City SC 4 (K. Ziada 1, D. Matkovic 1, G. Jozeljic 1, D. Miskulin 1)(HT: 2-1)  ,
North Geelong Warriors FC 0 Box Hill United SC 1 (R. Muriqi 1)(HT: 0-0)  ,
Whittlesea Ranges FC 2 FC Bendigo 1(HT: 1-0)  , Moreland Zebras FC 4 (J. Nikolic 1, J. Turner 1, A. Centofanti 1, E. Batsis 1) Kingston City FC 0(HT: 2-0)  ,
St Albans Saints SC 1 (B. Devlin 1) FC Bulleen Lions 2 (M. Dimech 1, T. Nishimoto 1)(HT: 0-1) 

NPL 20s
ROUND 2: 
Dandenong Thunder SC 0 Green Gully SC 3(HT: 0-0)  ,
Northcote City FC 0 Bentleigh Greens SC 0(HT: 0-0)  ,
Werribee City FC 1 Hume City FC 2(HT: 0-0) 
ROUND 1:
Bentleigh Greens SC  Ballarat Red Devils SC (HT: 0-0) (Washed Out)

NPL1 20s
ROUND 2: 
Brunswick City SC 2 (J. Papargiris 1, T. Idris 1) Dandenong City SC 1(HT: 1-1) 
North Geelong Warriors FC 1 Box Hill United SC 2(HT: 0-0) 
Whittlesea Ranges FC 2 FC Bendigo 5(HT: 0-0) 
Moreland Zebras FC 5 Kingston City FC 1(HT: 0-0)
St Albans Saints SC 2 FC Bulleen Lions 0(HT: 0-0) 




NPL TABLES

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   South Melbourne FC                  2       2       0       0       6       2       4       6      
2   Melbourne Knights FC               2       2       0       0       5       2       3       6      
3   Oakleigh Cannons FC                2       2       0       0       3       1       2       6      
4   Dandenong Thunder SC             2       1       0       1       3       2       1       4      
5   Green Gully SC                          2       1       1       0       4       1       3       3      
6   Hume City FC                            2       1       1       0       4       2       2       3      
7   Bentleigh Greens SC                   1       1       0       0       3       2       1       3      
8   Ballarat Red Devils SC               1       1       0       0       3       2       1       3      
9   Werribee City FC                       2       1       1       0       2       5       -3      3      
10  Port Melbourne Sharks SC        2       0       1       1       4       5       -1      1      
11  Northcote City FC                     2       0       2       0       4       6       -2      0      
12  Goulburn Valley Suns FC           2       0       2       0       2       4       -2      0      
13  Heidelberg United SC                2       0       2       0       1       5       -4      0      
14  Pascoe Vale SC                         2       0       2       0       0       5       -5      0      


NPL1

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Box Hill United SC                      2       2       0       0       5       1       4       6      
2   FC Bulleen Lions                        2       2       0       0       4       1       3       6      
3   Sunshine George Cross SC           2       2       0       0       3       0       3       6      
4   Moreland Zebras FC                      2       1       1       0       4       2       2       3      
5   St Albans Saints SC                     2       1       1       0       6       5       1       3      
6   Avondale Heights SC                     2       1       1       0       3       3       0       3      
7   Dandenong City SC                       2       1       1       0       5       5       0       3      
8   North Geelong Warriors FC               2       1       1       0       2       2       0       3      
9   Whittlesea Ranges FC                    2       1       1       0       4       4       0       3      
10  Richmond SC                             2       1       1       0       2       4       -2      3      
11  Kingston City FC                        2       1       1       0       3       6       -3      3      
12  FC Bendigo                              2       0       2       0       3       5       -2      0      
13  Brunswick City SC                       2       0       2       0       3       6       -3      0      
14  Springvale White Eagles FC              2       0       2       0       3       6       -3      0      


NPL 20s

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Green Gully SC                          2       2       0       0       6       0       6       6      
2   Pascoe Vale SC                          1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      
3   Oakleigh Cannons FC                     1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      
4   Port Melbourne Sharks SC                1       1       0       0       4       3       1       3      
5   Melbourne Knights FC                    1       1       0       0       2       1       1       3      
6   Hume City FC                            2       1       1       0       3       4       -1      3       
7   Bentleigh Greens SC                     1       0       0       1       0       0       0       1      
8   Northcote City FC                       2       0       1       1       1       2       -1      1      
9   Ballarat Red Devils SC                  0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      
10  South Melbourne FC                      0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      
11  Heidelberg United SC                    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      
12  Goulburn Valley Suns FC                 1       0       1       0       1       3       -2      0      
13  Werribee City FC                        2       0       2       0       1       5       -4      0      
14  Dandenong Thunder SC                    2       0       2       0       3       7       -4      0      


NPL1 20s

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Richmond SC                             1       1       0       0       4       0       4       3      
2   Moreland Zebras FC                      2       1       1       0       6       3       3       3      
3   North Geelong Warriors FC               2       1       1       0       6       4       2       3      
4   Springvale White Eagles FC              1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      
5   Sunshine George Cross SC                1       1       0       0       3       1       2       3      
6   FC Bendigo                              2       1       1       0       6       4       2       3      
7   Whittlesea Ranges FC                    2       1       1       0       6       5       1       3      
8   Avondale Heights SC                     1       1       0       0       2       1       1       3      
9   St Albans Saints SC                     2       1       1       0       3       3       0       3      
10  FC Bulleen Lions                        2       1       1       0       2       3       -1      3      
11  Brunswick City SC                       2       1       1       0       3       4       -1      3      
12  Box Hill United SC                      2       1       1       0       2       5       -3      3      
13  Dandenong City SC                       2       0       2       0       3       7       -4      0      
14  Kingston City FC                        2       0       2       0       1       9       -8      0      



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Anzac Day, by John Forbes

April 24, 2014, 8:00 am
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This is one of John's final poems, written in the year before his death in 1998. He didn't care much for soccer, being a rugby league follower. Cronulla was his team. He and I used to imagine we were the only ones interested in rugby league in Melbourne literary cicles and so we'd meet to watch grand finals at his place or mine. This poem nails Anzac Day.

I wonder what he'd make of things 17 years on.

Anzac Day

A certain cast to their features marked
the English going into battle, & then, that

glint in the Frenchman’s eye meant ‘Folks,
clear the room!’ The Turks knew death

would take them to a paradise of sex
Islam reserves for its warrior dead

& the Scots had their music. The Germans 
worshipped the State & Death, so for them

the Maximschlacht was almost a sacrament.
Recruiting posters made the Irish soldier

look like a saint on a holy card, soppy & pious,
the way the Yanks go on about their dead.

Not so the Australians, unamused, unimpressed
they went over the top like men clocking on,

in this first full-scale industrial war.
Which is why Anzac Day continues to move us,

& grow, despite attempts to make it 
a media event (left to them we’d attend

‘The Foxtel Dawn Service’). But The March is
proof we got at least one thing right, informal,

straggling & more cheerful than not, it’s
like a huge works or 8 Hour Day picnic-

if we still had works, or unions, that is.

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Soccer and Anzac

April 24, 2014, 8:30 am
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This piece is now at least 4 years' old. Yet I think it retains a freshness and perhaps a timelessness that is important. It is by far the most popular article on this site and I'm sure people keep coming back to read it. It has formed the basis of an upcoming 9000 word piece "Fronting Up: Australian Soccer and the First World War" to be published in June 1024 in the International Journal for the History of Sports. On 20 April 2014 this snippet to the right appeared in the Age. Sigh. Notice at last!


Each year on Anzac Day members of the Australian soccer community wonder, sometimes aloud: does this day have anything to do with our game? Where do we fit in the Anzac picture? 'No,' and 'Nowhere,' are the usual answers.

Considered by many a 'foreign game', soccer can seem so out of place and time in any story about Australian national development, growth and maturity. So surely the game played by Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters (and Poms and children, two categories missed by Johnny Warren) has no place in the tales of our warriors and heroes at Gallipoli and elsewhere? It just doesn't quite sit with the received legend. Perhaps these attitudes are breaking down today but there is long history of excluding soccer from the 'legend'.   

In 1931 a most extreme example of this exclusion was published in Hobart where soccer authorities sought access to the North Hobart football ground, normally reserved for Australian rules. They requested its use for representative games on the two days of the season when it was not needed by the STFA for first grade matches. Typically there were expressions of resistance to this desire, one of which was a letter to the Mercury penned by ‘Derwentside’. He argued that 
“Soccer” players and followers in Hobart are in a minority only a self-centred, and, which is worse, a selfish, player or supporter, would deny. Whatever merits “Soccer” has as a winter game, it has not here the following, status, or genuine sportsman-like appeal to the average Australian as the game which some fifty odd years has evolved under the name of Australian football. The proper development of a nation’s national pastimes, particularly the winter ones, does more to build up a virile nation than attempts to foster - or is it foist? - an exotic pastime upon them. Among the many thousands of Australians who manned so doggedly the trenches and trudged the fields of France and Flanders - to say nothing of the Gallipoli campaign - not a small percentage got the qualities which made the A.I.F. world renowned from the fields in at least four States devoted in winter to football played under Australian rules. 
This is one more letter published in relation to one more moment in the interminable squabble for playing space in Australian sport. And it articulated many of the sentiments that had come to take hold in the Australian sporting imaginary: soccer is low, unpopular, unestablished, minor, foreign (“exotic” in fact) and is being imposed/foisted on Australians by selfish and self-centred agents of foreign influence. More significantly here, it excludes soccer and its culture from the realm of Australian miltary history, particularly Gallipoli.

Yet soccer does have its place in the story. Indeed, soccer was at Gallipoli, and not merely in spirit. It was played there. The stunning image below of a soccer match being played at Gallipoli is the kind of picture that leaves nothing to be said. An organised game of soccer was played between Allied troops and they were being cheered on by hundreds of others. At Gallipoli.


The image is located at 5.49-5.52 in this public domain video. The game was
conducted as part of the illusion that the Allies were carrying on as normal when
in fact plans were being made to evacuate the Gallipoli Peninsula.

While more evidence is needed to connect this image directly with Australian troops, they certainly played soccer on Lemnos in December 1915. Lemnos was loaned by Greece as a base "for operations on the Gallipoli Peninsula" and the following image shows members of the 6th Battalion playing there against a team from HMS Hunter. The men were likely en route to Egypt after participating in the Gallipoli campaign.


The team from the destroyer HMS Hunter playing a game of soccer against a 6th
Battalion team at a camp on the Aegean island of Lemnos. Australian War Memorial.

More symbolic and potent evidence of the Australian game's intimate connection with Gallipoli lies in the remarkable story of the Soccer "Ashes". They were conceived in 1923 during New Zealand's tour to Australia.

Mr. Mayer (manager of the New Zealandsoccer team) took back to the dominion the ashes in a box with a history attached to it. Mr. W. A. Fisher (secretary of the Queensland association) possessed a silver safety razor case presented to him when he left for the war, and it was with him when he landed with the Anzacs. He presented it to Mr. Mayer, and it contains some of the soil of Queensland and New South Wales, whose representatives played in the test matches. Mr. Mayer intends to have it mounted in New Zealand woods so that it may be a prized memento in connection with international matches between Australia and New Zealand. (The (Adelaide) Register, 10 August, p7)

The "Ashes" tag appeared to be a typical symbolic nod to the cricketing Ashes until it was revealed by the Sydney Morning Herald 13-years later that the case literally contained ashes.
The "Ashes," incidentally, are a genuine trophy. They are a relic of the NewZealand team's visit to Australia 13 years ago, when the ashes of cigars smoked by the captains of the NewZealand and Australian team were placed In a plated safety-razor case, which, in turn, was enclosed in a casket ofNewZealand and Australian timbers, honeysuckle and maple, suitably ornamented and inscribed. This trophy bears a record of the test games between the two countries since 1922, and was won three years ago by Australia, which beat the visiting NewZealand team in every test. (3 July 1936)


The Sydney Sun-Herald (5 Sep., p 41) reiterates the story of the
Australia-NZ soccer "Ashes" during the 1954 New Zealand tour of Australia.
The 'Ashes', courtesy Ozfootball
Frequent test series over more than 30 years between the two Anzac nations, playing for a trophy that 'saw' action at Gallipoli and is inscribed with powerful cultural icons seems to be clear evidence of a deep and abiding relationship between soccer and the Anzac story.

But it is not so simple. Soccer is a game whose high points and poignancies are explained as statistical spikes or historical curios whereas its low points are seen to be the norm; its joys are accidental and its miseries systemic. The burden of proof for the soccer historian is eternal in its recurrence. So the soccer historian needs to work harder than most to have their stories even registered.


Four examples

There are many other examples of soccer being present in Australian military contexts in the First World war. The four presented below are not particularly special or significant. Indeed, they are presented precisely because of how low-key and mundane they seem.


1. A wartime awards ceremony in which a team receives winners' medals in an inter-company soccer competition.




Feuquieres, France. 3 January 1919. Presentation of medals C Company "soccer" team,
winners of inter-company football competition, on steps of the Town Hall in the village
square. Australian War Memorial

2. Another decorated wartime soccer team, runners-up in a divisional competition.


England,1919-04-05. 2nd Pioneer Battalion Soccer Team wearing the silver medals they won in the divisional competition. Australian War Memorial

3. Soccer balls ordered for the troops.

The Euroa Advertiser reports in July 1916 seeing
. . . a cable from Cairo to headquarters, 'Send immediately six tents, 10 small pianos, 5,000,000 printed letter paper and envelopes, 50 sets of cricket material,50 soccer footballs [my emphasis], 50 association footballs [presumably Sherrins]'.

4. HMAS Sydney's soccer team, October 1918

Group portrait of the soccer team representing the crew of HMAS Sydney.
HMAS Sydney was at the southern naval base of the Royal Navy's Grand
Fleet, near the Forth of Firth, Scotland, during a break from patrols of the North
Sea with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron. Australian War Memorial


These four moments, along with scores of others that could be identified and presented here, speak for themselves. And for most historians such a collection of evidence could begin to suggest a pattern. Yet the soccer historian struggles against the idea that that is all they are: a collection of instances; random, special cases that defy and deny the truth of the overarching myth that soccer, even if it was there, was never really there.

Yet it was there.


Soccer into the war

Prior to the First World War soccer had undergone something of a renaissance in Australia. After fitful beginnings in the 1880s, organised soccer spluttered into life in the first decade of the new century. Recovering from the depression and energised by waves of migrants, the game bloomed around Australia. Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart had thriving competitions. The 1912 Townsville competion, for example had 8 clubs in a population of just over 10,000. In large country towns like Rockhampton and Toowoomba, the game emerged and re-emerged like migrant-fuelled spot fires. In Victoria, the Dockerty Cup commenced in 1909 and became a central plank in the game’s re-growth. Club fixtures were regular and 1913 saw the reinstatement of the NSW-Victoria clash after a 25-year break.

War brought much of this expansion to a grinding halt. The Hobart Mercury recollected prior to the resumption of the interstate rivalry between Tasmania and Victoria in 1921:
The last occasion on which a Victorian team visited Tasmania was in August, 1914, and it was at Hobart when war was declared. Seven of the team volunteered for active service immediately on return to Melbourne. They beat the Tasmanian team on that occasion by two goals to nil, and earlier in the season at Melbourne had won by six goals to nil. Victoria have an exceptionally strong team, and Tasmania is also well represented, three members of the team, J. H. Honeysett, Stonor, and Beattie being in the team which was defeated by Victoria in 1914.
Like their Melburnian brethren, soccer players across the country were enlisting in droves. Each state felt the slashing of player numbers to the point where competitions were starting to look unviable. The Mercury claimed that "Soccer football stood out as a fine example to all sporting organisations in Tasmania. The Elphin Club had sent every one of its playing members to the war." (31 March, 1915) In South Australia player losses were also mounting. In April 1915 the Sturt Club reported losing "the services of eight of last year's players, who have enlisted in the Expeditionary Forces, and are now in Egypt, but several new men having been secured the prospects are bright." (The Register, 1 April)

While these departures were causing the game to wane, the clubs 'happily' sent their members off to war with a sense of duty and pride, as well as a semblance of ownership. The Adelaide Tramways team placed its enlisted members in a prominent position in its 1914 team photo (below).


Even though plans to form a national association were scuttled by the outbreak of war, the game carried on as best it could. The Argus of 9 August 1915 reports:
The annual international match between teams representing England and Scotland, under the auspices of the Victorian Amateur British Football Association took place on Saturday on the Fitzroy Cricket ground the authorities of which on this occasion granted the free use of the ground as net proceeds from the match were to be handed over to Lady Stanley's fund for Wounded Australian Soldiers.
Yet it was clear that the inescapable war was taking its toll. The Argus goes on:
Four of the players who took part in last year’s match are on active service, namely Lowe, Golding, Guthrie and Hyde, the latter of whom is at present in hospital at Plymouth, England, wounded. Of those who took part in Saturday's encounter 13 of them represented their various countries last year - seven for England and six for Scotland. Three of England’s representatives and two of Scotland's have enlisted and were relieved by their respective commandants to enable them to take part in Saturday's match.
The massive commitment made by soccer players to the war effort meant that the game was being played on borrowed time. And by 1916 the Melbourne competition was suspended, not to be resumed until after the war. According to the Argus, when soccer did resume, in 1919:
At the first annual meeting of the British Association, on June 16, the report covering a period of four years commencing 1915 disclosed the interesting fact that 90 per cent. of the players had enlisted for service abroad or at home. No competitive football had been played during the war.
In Toowoomba (then a town of 13,000 people) the commitment was remarkable. On the resumption of soccer in Toowoomba in 1919:
At the annual meeting of the British Football Association it was reported that 140 members of the association had gone to the Front . . . During the evening the Chairman extended a hearty welcome home to the returned men present, and Mr. S. Morgan responded on behalf of the returned men. The secretary stated that the British Football Association ("Soccer") was the only football association that had an honour roll inToowoomba. The names of Syd. Cousens, Lit. Groom, (both pictured below) A. Dundasch, Colin Groom, W. Bury, and J. McManus were recorded in the minutes as having paid the supreme sacrifice in the late Great War. (Brisbane Courier, 4 April, p11)
Private. Littleton Campbell Groom. 42nd Bn. Australian Inf. Killed in action
10th June, 1917. Age 28. Son of Frederick William and Fanny Matilda Groom,
of Lorriane, Herries St., Toowoomba, Queensland. Australian War Memorial
Private Sydney Leake Cousens, 26th Battalion, of Toowoomba, Qld; formerly of
Yorkshire, England. Killed in action at Villers-Bretonneux, France, on 8 August 1918. He was
33 years of age. His brother 816 Sergeant Stanley Clifford Cousens, 15th Battalion,
was killed in action at Pozieres, France, on 9 August 1916. Australian War Memorial


Irymple and the Caledonians

Pre-war soccer had not only grown in the metropolitan and larger regional centres. It had taken root in the country as well. Small towns like Broken Hill, Charters Towers and Renmark had bustling soccer cultures.

Mildura's developing two-team competition in this period rescuscitated a game that had flowered there briefly in the mid-1890s (curiously, at a time when the game virtually vanished in Melbourne). Weekly matches were played between clubs based in Mildura and the neighbouring town of Irymple. This microcosmic competition provides its own story and gestures towards the general tragedy of war. Of the 11 players pictured in the Irymple team of 1913 (below), at least seven enlisted. Of this number, five lost their lives.



Yet the scale of this tragedy is sadly exceeded by the example of the Caledonian team in Perth. Eight members of the club lost their lives in active service. The following image depicts, in uniform, the club's first XI and marks its six members who died. John Williamson's Soccer Anzacs (from which the image is extracted) documents the Caledonian story from origins to the club's final demise.






Commemorating Anzac Soccer?

The Toowoomba, Irymple and Caledonian tragedies (among so many others) underline a question that many in the soccer community have asked: "Why don’t we honour the Anzac legend with a commemoration similar to those arranged by other codes?"

Perhaps the failure is for good reasons - like not wanting to get caught up in a perceived jingoism or not wanting to rain on someone else's parade. But perhaps it's because soccer doesn't actually know its own history.

And it's not as if the game has never seen a role for itself in the remembering of Anzac.
SOCCER FOOTBALL.
Charity Match at Moonee Valley. Under the auspices of the Metropolitan and District “Soccer” Association a match for the benefit of the Anzac appeal will be played on the Moonee Valley racecourse. Moonee Ponds United will play Metropolitan and District Association. (Argus, 9 April 1927, p25)
It's just that soccer no longer seems not to know how to approach Anzac. In 2009, Football Federation Victoria tried to institute an Anzac match between Hume City (Turkish) and South Melbourne (Greek). It produced neither the desired symbolism nor the expected fireworks. After three years, the idea appears to have been shelved.

Personally, I'm not sure I would want to see a blockbuster Anzac soccer match develop - though in the unlikely event that it could be arranged, a game between Australia and Turkey might be appropriate. I think there is already too much hoop-la around what should be a solemn and sacred occasion. But the soccer community needs to work harder to make the broader community conscious of the game's role in Anzac and military history in general, whether that be seen in a positive or negative light. We need to understand why and how it came to be that a game so 'foreign' in the popular imagination participated so thoroughly in a campaign that for many is a founding moment in a vital Australian legend, or myth. We owe it to the memories of the men who formed the Returned Soldiers team in Brisbane to remind people they were there and then returned. After all, their team's very foundation was an assertion of memory.


Finally, we owe something to the men of Irymple and the Caledonians, the ones who didn't return. War is a waste of youth and life and it is driven by people who don't get their hands dirty or bloody, but we cannot afford to forget the stories and the details of those who paid that terrible price.

We must remember but we must remember well. Lest we forget, indeed.

Ian Syson
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'I wouldn't like to see that'

April 27, 2014, 3:10 pm
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The brief rise and inevitable fall of the Bulldogs

John Weldon wrote this piece for the Age in 1998. It's from a different time and speaks to a sentiment that's missing across all of our top-line professional sports today. And poor deluded John thought his Bulldogs were on the verge of a great era. Oh well.
I’ve been a Bulldogs fan since the late seventies. I watched them from the terraces at the Western Oval through various combinations of wind, hail and rain, and never once were they in any danger of tasting real success. Sure there was the odd finals campaign, but nothing which promised a future. That is until the appointment of Terry Wallace as coach, two seasons ago. He has brought levels of skill, endeavour and self-belief to the club the likes of which I have never seen before. He has the Doggies looking like winners, and I’m not sure if I like that.

I can’t truly enjoy the current run of success because I’m not used to it, and I don’t trust it. It’s hard to shake off that old feeling that it’s never too late to lose, (see last year’s preliminary final as proof of this). To make it that far last season and to fail so miserably was heart breaking, and as each victory takes the team closer to September glory I become more and more apprehensive. I worry about them like a parent whose child is ambitious and over-reaching, and like a parent I will feel their pain more deeply than they do, if they fail.

At times like this I wonder why I chose, as a boy, to follow such a troubled team. When I took an interest in football in my early teens, as a recent pommy migrant, teams such as Carlton, Hawthorn and Essendon were playing magnificent, awe inspiring football.

My first match was a Hawthorn vs. Footscray game at the Western oval in 1979. The dogs were hammered, but somehow they wormed their way into my soul. Even attendance at that years grand final, a stirring stoush between Carlton and Collingwood, couldn’t sway my heart, it was already beating red white and blue. Even before I understood what the game was about I understood what the Bulldogs were about. The crowd was full of pommies, wogs, paddies and others like me; I felt at home.

A fellow fan once said to me, “You don’t choose to barrack for Footscray, you’re geographically marooned out there. You have no choice.” This seems to be true, as all my friends from the St. Albans days, who barracked for the flashy teams of the eighties, have drifted back to the Bulldogs as they’ve grown older. Maybe it’s the fact that the other teams always hated coming over to our side of town. Somehow neither our ground nor our team were good enough in their eyes. As you become older you become more aware of that stigma, and you make a choice either to retreat from it or to wear it with pride every weekend at the game.

This most unfashionable of clubs now has over 20,000 members and is therefore guaranteed to survive, and I love that, but I resent the Johnny-come-lately’s in their brand new jumpers who stand in front of me in the outer. It’s not that I am afraid of change, I’m petrified of it. I find myself on the wrong side of thirty, wondering if the Bulldogs I supported will disappear forever. Will the newly won young fans of today turn out to be the self-satisfied Carltonesque fans of tomorrow? What will they know of standing on the sodden terraces at the Geelong Rd. end watching Brereton, Plugger and others carve up the hapless Bulldog defences of yesteryear?

Trooping out to the game week after week only to see your team destroyed, or almost make it, or nearly get it right, teaches a youth how to lose with grace. A win was a bonus. We were satisfied if we saw one great baulk from Douggie, a thumping tackle from Libba or a speccy from Chris. We were happy simply to be able to watch our team play. Perhaps winning is still too new a feeling. It’s hard for old timers like me to come to terms with

Strangely we revelled in the hellish conditions. The colder it got, the harder it rained and the more purplish and numb our extremities became the more we enjoyed ourselves. Success and the possibility of a premiership cannot replace that camaraderie.

The joy of the terraces at that glorious final-game-ever at the Whitten oval against West Coast, when the sky seemed to boil directly above the ground and bitter winds drove inch after inch of freezing rain into our faces. We collectively booed the poor fools who tried to raise umbrellas as we watched our boys play as true Scraggers, possibly for the last time, grinding the greatest of all Johnny-come-lately’s into the mud of Whitten Oval.

Now we face Adelaide, once again, in the preliminary final. If we can o’erleap them and go on to win the flag, it will surely spell the end of old Footscray and will truly herald the era of the Western Bulldogs. The move to Docklands will cement that and will end forever the days of standing on the terraces in the rain. We will sit undercover and in comfort and we will watch a winning team. I’m not sure I’d like to see that.
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Summer Soccer: Tell 'im e's dreamin'

April 29, 2014, 3:23 pm
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And then there's this, by Ian Warren from the Canberra Times, 20 July 1987. It's interesting because it shows how a number of aspects of the game and attitudes around it have changed. Interesting also that that some entrenched attitudes remain.
Notably this is written just before the game moved to summer. "It'll never work"or words to that effect claims Warren. Maybe it didn't.
AMONG THE MANY enormous problems faced by Australian soccer in its (probably hopeless) struggle for increased and enduring popularity is that the spectacle of the game itself does little to recruit participants and fans. The televising of Australian soccer probably does the game more harm than good while the televising of, say, basketball or of rugby league is a form of living advertising for the game.

Every Sunday the brave SBS-28 network broadcasts a whole match from Australia's West End Soccer League, boasting in its publicity material that this broadcast offers "the creme of local soccer". Bravely, I sat down to watch a match (4.30pm, July 12) between Sydney Olympic and SouthMelbourne.

Soccer referees have busy aftenoons these days and this was a busy afternoon for a referee rejoicing in thename of Bill Monteverde. Mr Monteverde's whistle regularly pierced the aternoon air like the insistent mating call of some monosyllabic bird of preyas infringement followed infringeent. Once in a while a little soccer interrupted the flow of fouling.

I was at a State Bank soccer league match a few Sundays ago in which one hyperactive defender was always urging his team mates to "Bite him!Bite him!" whenever an opponent advanced goalwards with the ball. This was, I fancy, an instruction to tackle the player rather than hang back and wait for him to actually do something with the ball in his possession.

There was a great deal of "biting" in the match offered by SBS. After a short spasm of actual soccer someone wouldbe writhing on the ground like a postman chewed by a bull terrier, clutching the ankles and femurs "bitten" in the tackle. Trainers were always on the field, administering the equivalent oftetanus injections to their fallen warriors.

"He's been in the wars," the panel ofcommentators (which included Johny Warren, Les Murray and an Englishperson doing an imitation of the commentators on BBC and ITV soccer programs) commented as someone who had been repeatedly "bitten" bit the turf again. Mr Monteverde, like most modern referees so used to and hardened by the spitefulness of the modern game that it would have taken an on-field murder to get him to send anyone off, showed five biters the yelow card, a trifling punishment fortheir crime of making the game unwatchably dreary.

During half-time the articulate LesMurray interviewed two soccer administrators on the subject of playing soccer fixtures in summer and in the evenings. One of them thought that this would be a great idea since it would allow "families" to come to the match after a day at the beach.

It is typical of Australian soccer administrators, blinded by their love of the game, that they would even dreamthat Australian soccer is a family entertainment. They were speaking after 45 minutes of tripping, kicking, writhing, hard lying to the referee, shirt pulling and swearing. I have no special gifts as a lip-reader but even I was able to decipher some of the terrible things Sydney Olympic manager Eddie "chop him down" Thomson was shouting at the long suffering Monteverde.
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Fronting Up: Australian Soccer and the First World War

April 30, 2014, 2:05 pm
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This is a link to my recent 9000-word article on soccer and World War One, 'Fronting Up: Australian Soccer and the First World War'. It's a culmination of a lot of the work I've done previously. Feel free to download from this link http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/wcYIZvDiDcIkPEMNxrFJ/full

Please note that there are limited free copies available so only download if you are keen to read and/or share.
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A Bibliography of Australian Football

May 8, 2014, 12:21 am
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Roy Hay has generously given us his permission to publish the bibliography from his and Bill Murray's A history of football in Australia: A game of two halves published by Hardie Grant, 2014. ISBN: 9781742707648  
Feel free to let us know if any important works are missing.

Books
Adair, Daryl & Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997.
Alagich, Colin, 100 Years of the World Game in Port Adelaide, Port Adelaide Lion Soccer Club, Adelaide, 2007.
Alagich, Richard, Soccer: Winning through Technique and Tactics, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1995.
Behrendt, Sarah, History of the Socceroos, Penguin Australia, Camberwell, Victoria, 2011.
Blainey, Geoff, A Game of our Own: The Origins of Australian Football, Information Australia, Melbourne, 1990, new edition, Black, Melbourne, 2003.
Booth, Douglas & Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000.
Cashman, Richard, Paradise of Sport: The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995.
Cockerill, Mike, Soccer’s Long Road to the Top, Lothian, Port Melbourne, 1998.
Cordner, John, The World of Football: A history of Football’s Various Codes from their Origins to Today, Self-published, Killara, NSW, 2002
Crowe, Rory, 100 Years of Queensland Soccer, Queensland Soccer Federation, Sportslead, Brisbane, 1984.
Desira, Peter with Richard Curmi, Green Gully Soccer Club: 50 Years, SESA, Teesdale, 2006.
Dettre, Andrew, Silver Jubilee of St. George-Budapest 1957-1982, The Club, Sydney 1982.
Economou, Nick, That other game: association football, politics and society, Sir Robert Menzies Centre, University of London, London, 1996.
Ray Erskine, A History of Ipswich Soccer, Coalstars Soccer Club, Ipswich, April 1980. Copy in John Oxley Library, Brisbane.
Fairs, Sid, ed., Corrimal Rangers: Soccer Centenary 1891–1991, The Club, Wollongong, 1991.
Fink, Jesse, 15 Days in June: How Australia became a Football Nation, Hardie Grant,Melbourne, 2007.
Foster, Craig, Fozz on Football, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2011.
Georgakis, Steve, Sport and the Australian Greek, Standard Publishing, Rozelle, NSW, 2000.
Georgakis, Steve, The Greek-Australian Sport Hall of Fame, Halkeas Press, Sydney, 2000.
Goldblatt, David, The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football, Penguin, London, 2007.
Gough, Tom, Introduction to Australian Soccer, New Horizon, Bognor Regis, 1983.
Grant, Sidney James, The History of Coalfields Soccer, The Author, Sydney, 1978.
Grant, Sidney James, Jack Pollard's Soccer Records, Jack Pollard, Sydney, n.d. [1974].
Green, Geoffrey, The History of the Football Association, 1863-1953, Naldrett Press, London, n.d. [1953].
Greenwood, Barrie, Soccer: West Australia 1960 to 2000, Perth Advertising Services, Perth, 2000.
Hall, Matthew, The Away Game, Harper Sports, Sydney, 2000.
Hall, Matthew, The Away Game: the Secret Lives of Australia's Soccer Superstars, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2006.
Harlow, Denis, History of Soccer in South Australia, 1902–2002, South Australian Soccer Federation, Adelaide, 2003.
Harlow, Denis, Cumberland United Soccer and Social Club: 50 Years 1943–1993, Cumberland United, Adelaide, 1993.
Harper, Andy, The Socceroos: Voodoo to Destiny, Limelight, Sydney, 2006.
Fisher, Rosalind & Peter Morrison, Hakoah Club Sydney 1938-1994, Hakoah Club, Bondi Junction, Sydney, 1994.
Hay, Roy & Bill Murray, A History of Football in Australia: A Game of Two Halves, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2014.
Hay, Roy & Ian Syson, The Story of Football in Victoria, Football Federation Victoria, Melbourne, 2009.
Hay, Roy, Geelong Advertiser Cup, 1981-2005: Souvenir Record, Printstar, Geelong, 2005.
Howell, Reet & Maxwell L. Howell, The Genesis of Sport in Queensland : From the Dreamtime to Federation, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1992.
Hudson, Chris, A Century of Soccer, 1898–1998: A Tasmanian History, Peacock Publishers, Hobart, 1998.
Kallinikios, John, Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963, Walla Walla, Sydney, 2007.
Kreider, Richard, A Soccer Century: A chronicle of Western Australian Soccer from 1896 to 1996, Sports West Media, Perth, WA, 1996.
Kreider, Richard, Paddocks to Pitches: The Definitive History of Western Australian Football, SportWest Media, Perth, 2012.
Lanfranchi, Pierre & Matthew Taylor, Moving with the Ball: The Migration of Professional Footballers, Berg, Oxford, 2001.
Lawrence, Geoffrey & David Rowe (eds), Power play: essays in the sociology of Australian sport, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, c1986.
Lustica, Bernard, From Hope to Glory: 40 Years of Croatia Deakin Soccer Club, Croatia Deakin, Canberra, 1999.
Martin, Egilberto, Juve! Juve! Elabor Helena Nominees, Brooklyn, Victoria, 1990.
Mason, Nicholas, Football! The Story of All the World’s Football Games, Temple Smith, London, 1974.
Maynard, John, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe: A History of Aboriginal Involvement with the World Game, Magabala Books, Broome, Western Australia, 2011.
McKay, Jim, No pain, no gain?: Sport and Australian Culture, Prentice Hall, Sydney, 1991.
Micallef, Philip, The World Cup Story: An Australian View, Philip Micallef, Carringbah NSW, 1994.
Mosely, Philip A., Ethnic Involvement in Australian Soccer: A History, 1950–1990, National Sports Research Centre, Australian Sports Commission, Canberra, 1995.
Mosely, Philip A., et al, Sporting Immigrants, Walla Walla, Sydney, 1997.
Murray, Bill, Football. A history of the world game, Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1994.
Murray, Bill, The World’s Game: A history of soccer, University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 1996.
Murray, Bill & Roy Hay, The World Game Downunder, ASSH Studies no. 19, Australian Society for Sports History, Melbourne, 2006.
Murray, Les, World Youth Championship Greats, AGPS, Canberra, 1993.
Murray, Les, By the Balls: Memoir of a Football Tragic, Random House, Sydney, 2006.
Nikolich, Peter, Beograd: White City Woodville 1949-1999, Beograd, Adelaide, 1999.
Nimac, Ivan, et al, More than the Game: 50 Years of Sydney United, Sydney United Football Club, Sydney, 2008.
O’Hara, John, (ed.), Ethnicity and Soccer in Australia, ASSH Studies in Sports History Number 10, Australian Society for Sports History, Campelltown, 1994.
Olivier-Scerri, G E, Encyclopaedia of Australian Soccer 1922-88, Showcase Publications, St Leonards, NSW, 1988.
Pospisil, Marijan, Croatia Sydney S.F.C. 1958-1988, The Club, Sydney, 1988.
Punshon, John, Australia 1922-1998, Soccer: The International Line-ups and Statistics Series, Soccer Books Ltd, Cleethorpes, 1999.
Schwab, Laurie, The Socceroos and their Opponents, Newspress, Melbourne, 1979.
Simmons, Ted, FFA Hall of Fame 2007, FFA, Sydney, 2007.
Smith, Tony, Soccer Lesson: The South Australian State Soccer Team and its Opponents 1923–1977, Peacock Publishers, Adelaide, 2013.
Soccer: Aussie Sports Coaching Program, ACHPER, Parkside, South Australia, c1987.
Solly, Ross, Shoot Out: The Passion and Politics of Soccer’s Fight for Survival in Australia, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, Qld, 2004.
Stell, Marion K, Half the Race: A History of Australian Women in Sport, Collins/Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, NSW, 1991.
Sutalo, Ilija, Croatians in Australia: Pioneers, Settlers and their Descendants, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, South Australia, 2004.
The Hamlyn international book of soccer, contributors Michael Archer [et al.], Hamlyn, London, 1977.
Tkalcevic, Mato, Croats in Australia: An Information and Resource Guide, Victoria College Press, Burwood, Victoria, 1988.
Thompson, Trevor, One Fantastic Goal: A Complete History of Football in Australia, ABC Books, Sydney, 2006.
Unikoski, Rachel, Communal Endeavours: Migrant Organisations in Melbourne, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1978.
Ward, Tony, Sport in Australian National Identity: Kicking Goals, Routledge, London, 2010.
Warren, Ian, Football Crowds and Cultures: Comparing English and Australian Law Enforcement Trends, ASSH, Melbourne, 2003.
Warren, John, Know the Game: Australian Football, Kingfisher Books, Cheltenham Vic, 1984.
Warren, Johnny & Andre Dettre, Soccer: The Australian Way, Summit, Sydney, 1979.
Warren, Johnny & Andrew Dettre, Soccer in Australia, Hamlyn, Sydney, 1974.
Watson, Elaine, Australian Women’s Soccer: The First Twenty Years, Australian Women’s Soccer Association, Canberra, 1994.
West Woden Juventus SC, West Woden Juventus: 25 years of Soccer, The Club, Manuka, ACT, 1979.
Williams, Jean, A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women's Football, Berg, Oxford, 2007.
Williams, Paul, with Kevin Christopher, The Un-official Beginners Guide to the History of the Australian National Soccer League, Studs Up, Bentleigh, 1999.
Williamson, John, Soccer Anzacs: The Story of Caledonian Soccer Club, John Williamson, Applecross, Western Australia, 1998.
Wilson, Tony, Australia United: Adventures at the 2006 World Cup, Germany, GSPBooks, Melbourne, 2006.

Biographies and Autobiographies
Allen, Peter, Reg Date: The Don Bradman of Football, Allen Media Services, Mosman, NSW, 2011.
Baumgartner, Leo, The Little Professor of Soccer, Marketing Productions, Bondi Junction, 1968.
Briscoe, Gordon, Racial Folly: A Twentieth Century Aboriginal Family, ANU press, Canberra, 2010.
Campbell, Donald, The Campbell Files: Everything You Won’t Find in the Stewart Report, Margaret Bowden, Marion, South Australia, 1995.
Farina, Frank with Bonita Mersiades, My World is Round: A Personal Playing History, Vox Peritus, Milton, Queensland, 1998.
Harper, Andy, Mr and Mrs Soccer, Random House, Sydney, 2004.
Johnston, Craig, Walk Alone, Collins Australia, Sydney, 1989.
Lusetich, Robert, My Beloved Socceroos: The Frank Arok Story, ABC Books, Sydney, 1992.
Mallett, Ashley, John Kosmina, Hutcheson Australia, Melbourne, 1983.
Margo, Jill, Frank Lowy: Pushing the Limits, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2001.
Moriarty, John, Saltwater Fella: An Inspiring True Story of Success against all Odds, Penguin, Melbourne, 2000.
O’Neill, John, It’s Only a Game: A Life in Sport, Random House, Sydney, 2007.
Perkins, Charles, A Bastard Like Me, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1975.
Rasic, Rale with Ray Gatt, The Rale Rasic Story, New Holland, Sydney, 2006.
Read, Peter, Charles Perkins: A Biography, Penguin, Ringwood, Victoria, 1990 and 2001.
Schwarzer, Mark, World Cup Destiny: From Sydney to Stuttgart, ABC Books, Sydney, 2006.
Shorrock, Les, My Charmed Life, privately published, no date.
Slater, Robbie, with Matthew Hall, The Hard Way, Harper Sports, Sydney, 1999.
Wade, Paul with Kyle Patterson, Captain Socceroo: The Paul Wade story, Harper Sports, Sydney, 1995.
Warren, Johnny with Andy Harper & Josh Whittington, Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters: An Incomplete Biography of Johnny Warren and Soccer in Australia, Random House, Sydney, 2002.

Chapters
Booth, Ross. ‘The A-League: A New League for Australia. From Old Soccer to New Football’, in Peter Burke and June Senyard, eds, Behind the Play: Football in Australia, Melbourne, Maribyrnong Press, 2008, 221–238.
Dabscheck, Braham. ‘Moving Beyond Ethnicity: Soccer’s Evolutionary Progress’, in Bon Stewart, ed., The Games Are Not the Same: The Political Economy of Football in Australia, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2007, 198–235.
Hay, Roy, ‘Soccer and social control in Scotland, 1873-1973,’ in Richard Cashman and Michael McKernan (eds) Sport: Money, Morality and the Media, Kensington, New South Wales University Press, 1981, pp. 223-247.
Hay, Roy, ‘A new look at soccer violence’, in Denis Hemphill, ed., All part of the game: Violence and Australian sport, Sydney, Walla Walla Press, 1998, 41–62.
Hay, Roy, ‘British Football, Wogball or the World Game?  Towards a social history of Victorian Soccer’, in John O’Hara, ed., Ethnicity and Soccer in Australia, ASSH Studies in Sports History Number 10, Australian Society for Sports History, Campelltown, 1994, 44–79.
Hay, Roy, ‘Oral history, migration and soccer in Australia, 1880-2000,’ in A James Hammerton  and Eric Richards , eds, Speaking to Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration,Visible Immigrants 6, History Program and Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 2002, 39-61.
Hay, Roy, ‘Croatia: Community, conflict and culture: the role of soccer clubs in migrant identity’, in Michael Cronin and David Mayall, eds, Sporting nationalisms: Identity, ethnicity and assimilation, London, Frank Cass, 1998, 49–66.
Hay, Roy & Marnie Haig-Muir, ‘“Huntin, Shootin and Fishin” and the Rest: Sports in Geelong in the Mid-nineteenth Century and Afterwards’, in Tom Spurling & Geoff Peel, eds, The View from Station Peak: Writings on Geelong: History and Literature, n.p., Geelong, 2007, 85–99.
Hay, Roy, ‘Croatia: Community, conflict and culture: the role of soccer clubs in migrant identity’, in Michael Cronin and David Mayall, eds, Sporting nationalisms: Identity, ethnicity and assimilation, London, Frank Cass, 1998, pp. 49-66.
Hay, Roy, ‘The last night of the Poms: Australia as a post-colonial sporting society,’ in John Bale and Mike Cronin, eds, Sport and post-colonialism, Berg, Oxford, 2003, pp. 15-28.
Hay, Roy, ‘Fan culture in Australian football (soccer): From ethnic to mainstream?’ in Matthew Nicholson, Bob Stewart and Rob Hess, eds, Football Fever: Moving the Goalposts, Maribyrnong Press, Melbourne, 2006, 91–105.
Hay, Roy, ‘Violence by Players’, in Wray Vamplew et al. (eds) Oxford Companion to Australian Sport, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Second Edition 1994, originally published, 1992, pp. 443-446.
Hay, Roy & Ian Warren, ‘Who supports Melbourne Victory? A preliminary inquiry into crowd make-up and dynamics in the new A-League,’ in Peter Burke and June Senyard, eds, Behind the Play: Football in Australia , Maribyrnong Press, Melbourne, 2008, 239–260.
Hughson, John, ‘The Bad Blue Boys and “the magical recovery” of John Clarke’, in Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti, eds, Entering the Field: Studies in World Football, Oxford, Berg, 1997, pp. 239-259.
Jones, Roy & Philip Moore, ‘He only has eyes for Poms’, in John O’Hara, ed., Ethnicity and Soccer in Australia, ASSH Studies in Sports History, Number 10, Australian Society for Sports History, Campbelltown, NSW, 1994, 16–32.
Miller, Toby, ‘The Unmarking of Soccer: Making a Brand New Subject’, in T. Bennett et al, eds, Celebrating The Nation: A Critical Study of Australia's Bicentenary, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1992.
Moon, Paul & Peter Burns, The Asia-Oceania Soccer Handbook, The Authors, Oamaru, New Zealand, 1985.
Mosely, Philip, ‘Balkan Politics in Australian Soccer’, in John O’Hara, ed., Ethnicity and Soccer in Australia, ASSH Studies in Sports History, Number 10, Australian Society for Sports History, Campbelltown, NSW, 1994, 33–43.
Mosely, Philip, ‘Soccer’, in Philip A. Mosely, Richard Cashman, John O’Hara & Hilary Weatherburn, eds, Sporting Immigrants, Walla Walla Press,Crows Nest, NSW, 1997, 00–00.
Murray, Bill, ‘The workers sports movement in France’, in Arnd Krueger and Jim Riordan, eds, The story of Workers Sport, Human Kinetics, Champaign, 1996, 00–00.
Murray, Bill with Philip Mosely, ‘Soccer, in Wray Vamplew and Brian Stoddart, eds, Sport in Australia. A Social History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 213–230.
Murray, Bill, ‘Asia and the Pacific’, in Stephen Wagg, ed., Giving the game away. Football, politics and culture in five continents, Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1995, pp. 138-162.
Procter, Nicholas and Lynch, Rob 1995, ‘The uses of soccer by Serbian Australians in the expression of cultural identity’, in Clare Simpson and Bob Gidlow, eds, Proceedings of ANZALS Conference 1995, ANZALS, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand, 182–188.
Vamplew, Wray, ‘Violence in Australian Soccer: The Ethnic contribution’, in John O’Hara, ed., Ethnicity and Soccer in Australia, ASSH Studies in Sports History, Number 10, Australian Society for Sports History, Campbelltown, NSW, 1994, 1–15.
Vamplew, Wray, ‘Sports crowd disorder: An Australian survey’, in John O’Hara, ed.,Crowd violence at Australian sport, ASSH Studies in Sports History, No. 7, Australian Society for Sports History, Campbelltown, 1992, 79–111.
Warren, Ian, ‘Soccer subcultures in Australia’, in Carmel Guerra and Rob White, Ethnic minority youth in Australia: Challenges and myths, National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, Hobart, 1995, 121-131.
Warren, Ian & Roy Hay, ‘Order and disorder at sporting venues’, Denis Hemphill, ed., All part of the game: Violence and Australian sport, Sydney, Walla Walla Press, 1998, pp. 63-86.
Westerbeek, Hans & Aaron Smith, ‘Australian Amateur Soccer and Ethnicity: Cross-cultural Marketing Challenges’, in Rob Hess, Matthew Nicholson, and Bob Stewart, eds, Football Fever: Crossing Boundaries, Melbourne, Maribyrnong Press, 2005, 73–88.

Articles
Adair, Daryl, and Vamplew, Wray, ‘Not So Far From the Madding Crowd: Spectator Violence in Britain and Australia. A Review Article’, Sporting Traditions, 7(1), November 1990, 95–103.
Adair, Daryl, ‘Australian Sport History: From the Founding Years to Today’, Sport in History, 29(3), 2009, 405–436.
Brabazon, Tara, ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory? Perth Glory and the Imagining of Englishness’, Sporting Traditions, May 1998, No. 2, pp. 53–66.
Brawley, Sean, ‘Second rate Java Jaunters: soccer football, the imaginary grandstand, cultural diplomacy and Australia's Asian context’, Sport in Society, 15(4), 2012, 504–528
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Dabscheck, Braham, ‘Australian Soccer’s Freedom of Association Dispute’, Sporting Traditions, November 2000, No. 1, pp. 57-75
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Hallinan, Christopher & Tom Heenan, ‘Australia, Asia and the New Football Opportunity’, Soccer and Society, 14(5), 2013, 751–767.
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Hay, Roy, ‘Australian soccer clubs for sale’, Sports Factor, ABC Radio National, with Amanda Smith, Melbourne, 19 May 2000. Transcript available at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/stories/s68958.htm
Hay, Roy, ‘Black (Yellow or Green) Bastards: Soccer Refereeing in Australia: A much maligned profession’, Sporting Traditions, 15(2), May 1999, 19–36.
Hay, Roy, ‘Croatia: Community, conflict and culture: the role of soccer clubs in migrant identity’, Journal of Immigrants and Minorities, 17(1), March 1998, 49–66.
Hay, Roy, ‘Marmaras’s oyster or Seamonds’ baby?  The formation of the Victorian Soccer Federation, 1956-1964’, Sporting Traditions, 10, No 2, 1994, pp. 3-24.
Hay, Roy, ‘“Our wicked foreign game”: Why has Association Football (soccer) not become the main code of football in Australia?’ Soccer and Society, 7, no. 2–3, April-July 2006, 165–186.
Hay, Roy, ‘Sidelight on bodyline,’ Baggy Green: Journal of Australian Cricket, Volume 4 No 1, 2001, pp. 19-21. Contains material on a soccer match between the English cricket tourists of 1932-33 and Hakoah Melbourne just prior to departure.
Hay, Roy, ‘Soccer in Geelong between the Wars’, Investigator, No. 115, vol 29,  No. 2, June 1994, pp. 47-60 and ‘Soccer in Geelong since the War’, Investigator, No. 116, Vol. 29, No. 3, August 1994, pp. 87-108.
Hay, Roy, ‘Sports Mad Nations: Some research already done,’ Australian Society for Sports History Bulletin, 33, February 2001, pp. 18-24.
Hay, Roy, review of Matthew Hall, The Away Game, Sydney, Harper Sports, 2000; Geelong Advertiser, 7 October 2000, p. 45.
Hay, Roy & Nick Guoth, ‘No single pattern: Australian Migrant Minorities and the Round Ball Code in Victoria,’ Soccer and Society, 10(6), November 2009, 825–844.
Hay, Roy & Heath McDonald, ‘A Victory for the fans? Melbourne’s new football club in historical perspective,’ Soccer and Society, 8(2/3), April/June 2007, 297–314.
Hay, Roy & Tony Joel, ‘Football’s World Cup and its Fans—Reflections on National Styles: A Photo Essay on Germany 2006,’ Soccer and Society, 8(1), January 2007, 1–32.
Hughes, Antony, Review of Rosalind Fisher & Peter Morrison, Hakoah Club Sydney 1938-1994, Hakoah Club, Bondi Junction, Sydney, 1994, Sporting Traditions, 1995, Vol. 11, ( 2), pp. 128-30.
Hughson, John 1999, ‘A tale of two tribes: Expressive fandom in Australian soccer’s A-League’, Culture, Sport and Society, 2, Number 3, Autumn 1999, pp. 10-30.
Hughson, John, ‘Australian soccer: “Ethnic or Aussie” – The search for image’, Current Affairs Bulletin, 10, March 1992, pp. 12-16.
Hughson, John, ‘Football, folk dancing and fascism: diversity and difference in multicultural Australia, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 33, 1997, pp. 167-186.
Hughson, John, Soccer Support and Social Identity: Finding the ‘thirdspace’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33(4), 1998, 403–409.
Hughson, John, ‘The Boys are Back in Town: Soccer Support and the Social Reproduction of Masculinity’, Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 24(1), 2000, 8–23.
Hughson, John, ‘The Wogs are at it again’: The Media Reportage of Australian Soccer ‘Riots’, Football Studies, 4(1), 2001, 40–55.
James, Keiran, Chris Tolliday & Rex Walsh, ‘Where to now, Melbourne Croatia? Football Federation Australia’s use of Accounting Numbers to Institute Exclusion upon Ethnic Clubs’, Asian Review of Accounting, 19(2), 2011, 112–124.
Lawrence, G. A. (Geoffrey A.), Thugs, hooligans and animals: Australian media analysis of the Brussels football riot, Australian Studies Centre, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, London, 1986.
Lock, Daniel. ‘Fan Perspectives of Change in the A-League’, Soccer & Society, 10(1), 2009, 109–23.
Lock, Daniel, S. Darcy & T. Taylor, ‘Starting with a clean slate: An analysis of member identification with a new sports team’, Sport Management Review, 12(1), 2009, 15–25.
Lynch, Rob, ‘Disorder on the sidelines of Australian Sport", Sporting Traditions, 8 (1) 1991, pp. 50-75.
Moore, Phillip. ‘Soccer in the West: The World Game in Australia’s Western Periphery’, Soccer & Society, 10(1), 2009, 84–95.
Mosely, Philip, ‘European immigrants and soccer violence in New South Wales, 1949-1959’, Journal of Australian Studies, No. 40, March 1994, pp. 14-26.
Mosely, Philip, ‘Factory Football: Paternalism and Profits’, Sporting Traditions, November 1985, No. 1, pp. 25-36.
Mosely, Philip, ‘The Game: Early Soccer Scenery in New South Wales’ Sporting Traditions, May 1992, No. 2, pp. 135-151.
Mosely, Philip, Ethnic Involvement in Australian Soccer: A History 1950-1990, (Book Review) by Lyle Allen, Sporting Traditions, May 1995, No. 2, pp. 145-150.
Murray, Bill, and Hay, Roy, ‘Australia and Olympic soccer’, The Cauldron, a special issue of Yorker, Melbourne Cricket Club Current Awareness Bulletin, 27, Spring 2000, 2–6.
Murray, Bill, in Jason di Rosso’s radio programme on ‘The Beautiful Game’ Radio 4EB Brisbane six part radio series on ‘Messages from the past, Voices to the future’.
Musch, Jochen, (University of Bonn) and Hay, Roy, ‘The relative age effect in soccer: cross-cultural evidence for a systematic discrimination against children born late in the competition year’, Sociology of Sport Journal, 16, 1999, 54–64.
Nielsen, Eric, ‘”Indian hockey [and football] tricks”: race, magic, wonder and empire in Australian–Indian sporting relations, 1926–1938’, Sport in Society, 15(4), 2012, 551-564
Pajic, Zoran, ‘”A” is for Australia: New Football’s Billionaires, consumers and the “Asian Century”. How the A-League defines the new Australia’, Soccer and Society, 14(5), 2013, 734–750.
Rowe, David & Gilmour, C., ‘Getting a ticket to the world party: televising soccer in Australia’, Soccer & Society, 10(1), 2009, 9–26
James Skinner, Dwight Zakus & Allan Edwards, ‘Coming in from the margins: ethnicity, community support and the rebranding of Australian soccer’, Soccer & Society, 9(3), 2008, 394–404.
Taylor, Tracy, Lock, Daniel & Darcy, Simon, ‘The Janus face of diversity in Australian Sport’, Sport in Society, 12(7), 2009, 861–875.
Warren, Ian & Roy Hay, ‘“Fencing them in”: The A-League, Policing and the Dilemma of Public Order,’ Soccer and Society, 10(1), January 2009, 124–141.
Weinberg, Ben, ‘“The Future is Asia”? The Role of the Asian Football Confederation in the Governance and Development of Football in Asia,’ The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29(4), March 2012, 535–552.

Newspapers and Magazines
Australian FourFourTwo, 2005–continuing
Goal Weekly, 2005–continuing
King Soccer (South Australia), 1960s.
Soccer Action, 1976–1987.
Soccer Mirror
Soccer News, (Victoria) 1924-
Soccer News, (Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association), 1948–1972.
Soccer News (Metropolitan Soccer Football Association, New South Wales) 1922–1927.
Soccer News (Australian Soccer Football Association) 1953.
Soccer News (South Australia) 1956–60.
Soccer Star, 1988-1990.
Soccer Week, 1974-1976.
Soccer Weekly News (NSW Soccer FA Ltd) 1947–1950, 1952–1958.
Soccer Weekly, 1962.
Soccer Week, 1975.
Soccer Voice, 1985, 1986.
Inside Soccer, 1999.
Australian Soccer Weekly, 1980, continued as Australian and British Soccer Weekly1991, and Australian and International Football Weekly 200x-2011 or 2012
Soccer International,
Soccer World, (NSW State Soccer League) 21 August 1931
Soccer World (NSW Federation of Soccer Clubs) 1959
Soccer World, Vol. 1, no. 1 (July 12, 1958)-v. 25, no. 9 (Oct. 1982)
Australian Soccer, 1989-1991
Western Australia Soccer Mail (Western Australia Soccer FA) 1951–1952 and beyond?
World Soccer, 1960–continuing
Sporting Globe, 1922–1972.
Studs Up,
League News, Official Weekly Newsletter of the Amateur Soccer Federation of Victoria, 199??-
Football Annual (‘Sunday Chronicle’) 1948–49 season.
Howe, Andrew, National Soccer League, Official Season Guide 2003–04. Soccer Australia, Homebush, Sydney, 2003.

Theses
Dew, Stephanie, Ethnic Involvement in Sport in Geelong, 1945-1990, M A Thesis, Deakin University, 1992.
Georgakis, Steve, Greek sporting traditions in Australia: An historical study of ethnicity, gender and youth, PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, 1999.
Hughson, John E, A feel for the game: An ethnographic study of soccer support and identity, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 1996.
John Kallinikios, Sporting Realities and Social Meanings: The Transformation and Representation of Soccer in Victoria, 1945-1963, University of Melbourne, PhD thesis, 2004.
Lobley, J Murray, ‘Coal, steel and leather’: The history of soccer in Gippsland, M A thesis, Victoria University of Technology, 2001.
Lock, Daniel, New Team Identification: Sydney FC, A Case Study, Ph.D. thesis, University of Technology, Sydney, 2009.
McNeice, Kian, Soccer-Related Soccer Violence: Towards a Theoretical Framework for the Australian Setting, BA (Hons) thesis, Australian National University, 1991.
Mosely, Philip A, A Social History of Soccer in New South Wales, 1880–1957, PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1987.
Pocklington, Michael, Ethnicity of Football in Australia, Master of Business (Sports Management), Deakin University, 2006.
Spurling, Anna, Hooligans or Fans? Violence and culture in Association Football since the Second World War, BA Honours Thesis, Deakin University, 1999.
Warren, Ian, Cultures of control: Law, Enforcement and public order at sporting events: A comparative approach, MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1996.

Reports
Bubalo, Antony, Football Diplomacy, Lowy Institute, Sydney, November 2005.
Constantine, John, Holmes, Ian, ASF Submission responding to the Stewart Report, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1995.
Coulter, John, Soccer: Senate First Report June 1995, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1995.
Coulter, John, Soccer: Senate Second Report November 1995, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1995.
Australian sport, a profile, Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism [and] Australian Sports Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1985.
Australian sport index. National Sport Information Centre, Belconnen, ACT, [1988].
Australian sports directory, Department of Home Affairs, Australian Govt. Pub. Service, Canberra, 1979- From 1979/80 to 1981/82, each issue covers July 1-June 30.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘Participation in Sport and Physical Activities’, Year Book Australia, 1998 (ABS Catalogue No. 1301.0) for an electronic version, see http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3110124.NSF/14e59eeb4d4c9c94ca25670400073e4f
NSL Task Force. Report of the NSL Task Force into the Structure of a New National Soccer League Competition (Kemeny Report). Sydney: Australian Soccer Association, 2003
Soccer, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts Reference Committee, First Report, Canberra, June 1995; Second Report, November 1995.
Hay, Roy, and Michael Pocklington, with Ian Warren. First Report on a Public Order Strategy for the City of Melbourne, unpublished research report to the City of Melbourne, July 2007.
Smith, Winston, Building Australia’s football community: A Review into the Sustainability of Football, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2011.

Coaching manuals

Alagich, Richard, Soccer: Winning through Technique and Tactics, McGraw- Hill, Sydney, 1995
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The violence that dare not speak its name

May 9, 2014, 12:18 am
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Violence in Australian Rules Football Crowds

Two more examples of the thing that doesn't happen: violence between or by AFL supporters -- this time after Collingwood's visit to Adelaide. This after the recent Collingwood v Carlton game at the MCG - has inspired me to update this piece. Enjoy, or not. My previous update was in September 2013 after the Carlton v Richmond Final. Just found this on youtube from 1993. Adelaide v Carlton at Waverley.

We are led to believe that violence in Australian rules crowds is unusual and random. Violent incidents are not seen to represent a significant or consistent pattern of behaviour. When they do occur they are interpreted as sitting outside the normal behaviour of spectators. In recent times there have been some incidents that have come to the notice of the media, often via their capture on mobile phones. Even allowing for the rise in their reporting, these examples seem to me to be exceptional. Yet the media perhaps goes one further and suggests that these incidents are so exceptional that they might as well have not happened. They are certainly not remembered as the basis of a pattern of behaviour cited the next time such violence might occur. Indeed, sometimes the violence is likened to what is supposed to happen at other sports.

Violent behaviour has occurred consistently for well over 100 years in Australian rules football crowds at the elite levels and below. From revolvers being fired by policemen frightened of unruly crowds to bashings on a collective or individual scale, footy crowd violence is infrequent but not as rare as some would have it.

In 1924 a frightened policeman was moved to fire his revolver in order to disperse a crowd at a Port Melbourne VFA game when a portion of the crowd had attacked him.

June 1924. While not typical, this is not a unique event.

And shortly after the Second World War spectator violence became a common theme in Melbourne newspapers. In 1946 the Argus reported a particularly nasty moment at Port Melbourne when a crowd incensed by the umpires needed to be broken up with the use of batons.




This phenomenon was reported around Australia. The Northern Miner, a newspaper that served the north Queensland mining town of Charters Towers, reported a rising tide of crowd violence in Melbourne in 1948.

FootballViolence


Brawls in Melbourne


MELBOURNE, May 15.

Three brawls occurred during a football match between Port Melbourne and Williamstown at Port Melbourne today. Foot and mounted police escorted the umpire from the ground after the match. Two of the brawls. were between players, and one between spectators.
Just before the interval rough play developed into a free-for-all, involving nearly half the players. Trainers and a boundary umpire broke it up, while the remaining players continued the game. Another ugly scene followed a collision between two players. An umpire intervened.At the same time, some of the spectators began to fight They were quelled by police. Other examples of violence at Melbournefootball in the past month have been:  
On April 17, detectives were bashed by a mob of 200 outside South Melbourne Cricket Ground. 
On April 24, police with batons, and a mounted constable, had to intervene to break up a brawl which developed in the outer ground during the last minutes of the Carlton-Fitzroy Victorian Football League game.  

On May 1. after Preston had beaten Prahran at the Australian Rules Association match at Prahran, police with batons had to protect Umpire J. Egan from 300 angry Prahran barrackers.
Oh for youtube in the 1920s and 1940s! Indeed, the youtube era has allowed us to see some fairly ugly moments up close. The brawl below is from a pre-season cup game at Docklands in 2009.


To be fair the police in this clip seem utterly incompetent, understaffed and unable to nip the escalating brawl in the bud.

This one from 2011 is more contained, being between two Hawthorn fans at Subiaco.



Ian Warren suggested nearly 20 years ago in 'Violence in Sport - The Australian context' that violence was a constant in Australian rules crowds even id the determinants of that violence changed over time.

In the first half of the Twentieth century it was often connected with fans taking umbrage at perceived player violence against other players.
Participant violence in Australian Rules persisted, but declined dramatically during this period [1940-1982]. In the years during and after the War several games were characterised by recurring violence among players which led to minor intrusions onto the arena by spectators.
Warren argued that there are historical phases of violence in footy crowds which map onto social developments. Since 1940 the tendency to mass violence has been effectively mitigated:
an increased and more systematic police presence at football venues meant that the nature of crowd disorder was mainly confined to minor incidents amongst the crowd itself.
The majority of on field instances were sporadic in nature and occurred with far less frequency than in previous times. Data collection is incomplete for this period, but it appears that of the 12,000 VFL and VFA games played during this time, only 10 were characterised by major participant and spectator disorder. Most of these occurred in a series of violent matches in 1945, where the VFL final series in particular saw a number of deliberate assaults being committed by players which "disgusted" members of the crowd (Argus, 1 October 1945).
Since the end of the war, isolated examples aside, footy violence has lost its sense of mass and/or collective disorder. Policing and crowd control methods as well as new social attitudes have tended to eliminate the possibility of older form of collective violent action. When violence does occur. the periodic, observed brutality has been of the short, sharp and isolated kind in the main - though when the lights went off at VFL Park in the mid-1990s the spectre of mass, anarchic disorder seemed clearly to be haunting the culture.


Interestingly, the commentators (the usual suspects) seem perhaps a little pleased that the punters could behave in such an anarchic manner. Perhaps this pleasure over a bit of large scale disobedience is a nostalgic hankering for the golden days of large scale brawls and riots at the footy.

Yet footy fans don't need the cover of darkness to reveal their nastier elements. Only a few years earlier, poor police preparation had been a significant factor in a particularly violent encounter between Collingwood and Essendon during which at least 20 "mini-brawls" erupted around the ground. A police spokesman referred to earlier violent games during the season but suggested that this was by far the worst.
Police 'not Ready For Footy Brawls'
Sue Hewitt
26 July 1992
Sunday Age

POLICE yesterday admitted they were unprepared for the brawls at Friday night's Collingwood-Essendon game that led to 180 people being evicted from the MCG and 11 arrests.

The police field commander, Senior Sergeant John Fraser, said yesterday that it was the worst violence he had seen at a match this year. He said he would be seeking to double police strength at MCG matches and would discuss with his superiors further restrictions on alcohol sold at the ground.

Fighting inside the ground started at 6.30 when four to five people brawled behind the eastern goals. Four police were injured. Police reported several other incidents, including a fight in the Keith Miller bar in the Great Southern Stand where, it was alleged, a broken glass was used.

More than 88,000 fans, the biggest crowd for a home-and-away game this season, watched Collingwood defeat Essendon by 22 points.

Senior Sergeant Fraser said there were times when he feared for the safety of the public and police. Twenty "mini-brawls'' erupted around the ground in areas normally trouble-free.

Seventy police were on duty to control a crowd that had been estimated would reach 70,000. They were unprepared for the 88,000 turnout, he said.

Senior Sergeant Fraser said there had been a few fights at the Collingwood-Carlton centennial match and at the first night game between North Melbourne and Carlton on 10 April, but Friday night's violence was worse.

The Opposition spokesman on police matters, Mr Pat McNamara, yesterday blamed a statewide police shortage for the problems.
The conclusion we can reach is that it is patently untrue that that Australian Rules Football is conducted in an atmosphere of universal, good-natured tolerance. Historically, footy crowds were as capable of unruliness, disruption and discontent as any other sports crowd.

The following examples are from recent crowd trouble in AFL, with one from South Australian local footy. When footy commentators reject the idea of violence at the footy they are in effect ignoring the pattern and significance of such moments of thuggery. But the ultimate truth is I suspect that many don't really have any problem with what is happening because these examples are 'appropriate' expressions of limited and controllable passion.

1) The following image is of a man who was bashed in the lift at the St Kilda-Richmond match at Etihad stadium in June 2012. It's the kind of image that points to the existence of behaviour that many footy commentators refuse to acknowledge. The fact that it happened in a lift speaks unintentionally of the invisibility of footy violence.

http://media.mytalk.com.au/3AW/AUDIO/080612_bashing400.jpg

2) The following image is of a Carlton supporter who was bashed by Collingwood supporters outside the MCG in April 2011. The victim had admonished a group of men who were abusing some older spectators and was "brutally attacked from behind leaving him with extensive injuries including a broken jaw, several smashed teeth and temporary blindness in his right eye."

http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/04/09/1226036/515214-steven-eglezos.jpg

3) At the Port Pirie A Grade Grand Final in September 2012, umpire Paul Fitzgerald was "bashed and seriously injured in front of thousands of spectators during an A-Grade grand final." This incident reached its conclusion when the perpetrator was jailed for 7 months.

Paul Fitzgerald

4) Collingwood supporters are unfairly characterised by many as being 'feral' and unruly. This video footage is from a game at the MCG when some Collingwood supporters turned on each other suggests that occasionally that reputation may have been justly earned.

5) Demon's player Nathan Jones' father bashed outside the MCG in 2009. 

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2009/09/24/1225779/159659-brad-jones.jpg
From Herald Sun
There are many other examples that could be cited: the 12-year-old boy who was grabbed by the throat and abused by a grown man at the MCG in 2012; the woman who was punched in the face at the same venue two months earlier for having the temerity to ask a some supporters to tone down their language; the abuse from the crowd at Subiaco that led Geelong's Brian Cook to appeal for crowd control measures to be introduced; the 2007 brawl in the members at the MCG two weeks after a more extensive one at the same place; the Port Power fan left in a coma after his team played Collingwood in 2004. Forgive me for seeing a pattern here, while there will be many who still don't see it. 

Yet none of that which goes before should take away from the fact that there are a hell of a lot of footy spectators who don't cause trouble, 10s of thousands in fact. And it would be a mistake to tar all footy supporters with the brush of their game's thuggish moments. Is it too much to ask that that kind of consideration be extended to other sports and activities?

____________________________________________________

Anyone keen to trace the long history of such behaviour might like to follow the links below to the National Library of Australia's digital newspaper collection. It's only a fraction of what is available (from such relatively minor examples as egg throwing and intense verbal abuse through to police and umpire bashing, large supporter brawls and the use of firearms) and the collection stops in the mid 1950s, but it makes interesting reading while demolishing the idea that footy crowds have rarely been violent.




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NPLV results 26 May 2014

May 25, 2014, 3:31 pm
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NPL
ROUND 10

  • Bentleigh Greens SC 1 Heidelberg United SC 3(HT: 1-1) 
  • Pascoe Vale SC 2 Oakleigh Cannons FC 0(HT: 1-0)
  • Dandenong Thunder SC 3 (J. Nakic 2, D. King 1) Ballarat Red Devils SC 1 (D. O'Donnell 1)(HT: 0-0)
  • Hume City FC 0 Green Gully SC 3 (M. Sanders 1, J. Hayne 1)(HT: 0-0)
  • Melbourne Knights FC 3 (A. Colosimo 2, D. Visevic 1) Port Melbourne Sharks SC 1(HT: 0-1)
  • Northcote City FC 3 (J. Kalifatidis 1, A. Chiappetta 1, T. Rixon 1) Goulburn Valley Suns FC 0(HT: 2-0)
  • Werribee City FC 0 South Melbourne FC 1 (M. Lujic 1)(HT: 0-1) 

NPL1
ROUND 9

  • Sunshine George Cross SC 1 (M. Sadik 1) Box Hill United SC 0(HT: 0-0)
  • Avondale Heights SC 2 (J. Principato 1, Z. Pajic 1) Dandenong City SC 1 (A. Jerez 1)(HT: 2-0)
  • Whittlesea Ranges FC 0 North Geelong Warriors FC 4 (R. Luka 3, M. Paleka 1)(HT: 0-2)
  • FC Bendigo 1 (G. Slefendorfas 1) Springvale White Eagles FC 4 (A. Fesseha 3, H. Millar 1)(HT: 1-1) 
  • Moreland Zebras FC 0 Richmond SC Seniors  1(HT: 0-1)
  • St Albans Saints SC 4 (B. Devlin 2, J. Julardzija 1) Brunswick City SC 0(HT: 3-0) 

TABLES
NPL

                                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   South Melbourne FC               10      10      0       0       23      7       16      30     
2   Oakleigh Cannons FC              10      6       1       3       23      8       15      21     
3   Heidelberg United SC              10      7       3       0       27      14      13      21     
4   Dandenong Thunder SC           10      5       3       2       13      17      -4      17     
5   Bentleigh Greens SC                 9       4       3       2       16      14      2       14     
6   Northcote City FC                   10      4       5       1       18      17      1       13     
7   Hume City FC                         10      4       5       1       12      13      -1      13     
8   Werribee City FC                    10      4       5       1       14      18      -4      13     
9   Port Melbourne Sharks SC      10      3       4       3       17      19      -2      12     
10  Green Gully SC                       10      4       6       0       19      25      -6      12     
11  Ballarat Red Devils SC             9       3       5       1       15      22      -7      10     
12  Melbourne Knights FC            10      3       7       0       11      15      -4      9      
13  Pascoe Vale SC                      10      2       5       3       10      15      -5      9      
14  Goulburn Valley Suns FC        10      1       8       1       13      27      -14     4      


NPL1

                                                     P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Avondale Heights SC                 9       8       1       0       24      9       15      24     
2   Sunshine George Cross SC        9       6       2       1       18      13      5       19      
3   St Albans Saints SC                   9       7       2       0       22      11      11      18     
4   Box Hill United SC                    9       5       2       2       19      9       10      17     
5   FC Bulleen Lions                        8       4       1       3       21      11      10      15     
6   Kingston City FC                        8       4       3       1       18      15      3       13     
7   Richmond SC Seniors                 9       4       4       1       16      22      -6      13     
8   North Geelong Warriors FC        9       4       5       0       16      14      2       12     
9   Springvale White Eagles FC        9       4       5       0       21      24      -3      12     
10  Dandenong City SC                   9       3       5       1       17      21      -4      10     
11  Moreland Zebras FC                 9       2       6       1       15      17      -2      7      
12  Whittlesea Ranges FC                9       2       6       1       12      21      -9      7      
13  FC Bendigo                               9       2       6       1       15      24      -9      7      
14  Brunswick City SC                     9       1       8       0       8       31      -23     3    

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The 2014 AFL season: a Guide

June 3, 2014, 5:07 pm
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Bob J. Penny recently sent us this piece. Now I'm not a big footy fan but this seemed so hilarious that I just had to publish it. Be interested in your responses.
You won’t believe what I got accused of the other day. Some reprobate suggested that I was one of those people. You know. The people who only care about AFL once a year.

What a disgusting accusation. I mean, sure I’m excited about the Phoody Phinals that’ll be starting in cloudy Melbourne (or as the locals don’t call it, “Mexico”) in September, but it’s not true that I only get interested in “the footification game” when the World Series play-offs are on.

In fact, I follow the sport passionately all year, every year. I am a particularly fanatical supporter of our local team, the Greater Wandering Giants (or as we traditional hardcore fans know them, the “grey and faded oranges”) and I have a deep familiarity with all the major footifiers on the VFL roster.

Smithy, Johnno, Billy, Shane, Johnno and Scotty. I am a walking encyclopaedia on every one of them, and I resent any implication that I am not. The truth is that I am pretty much the epitome of what Wikipedia is talking about when it says “the game is played on an oval field”.

In fact, it is to prove that I am no footifying dilettante that I am penning this article to give some of my considered thoughts on the likely outcomes and implications of the upcoming footy Bowl. If nothing else it should be an education for those of you who are not au fait with the game they play in Mexico.

First of all: can the Midgets win? I say yes. I say this not just because westie bogans have a lot more guts than latte-sipping Melbournians, who make up 90 per cent of the other teams involved in the tourney, but also because our coach Scotty Smith-Johnson has put together a squad full of men who can kick the ball incredibly hard.

Footy neophytes may not realise this, but the most important thing in footy is to kick the ball as hard as you can, to penetrate “the goals”, a technical term for the four sticks at each end of the field.

As my old footy teacher used to say, “a kick in the head never hurt anyone”, and I think it’s probably true. Never hurt me. The Giants’ team has a lot of extremely hard kickers, like Smithy and Scotty. It’ll be difficult for the defenders of traditionally less robust clubs like North Mexico and Western Mexico to withstand the force of these men’s feet.

Another thing in the Graters’ favour is the rule change, which will come into force next week and which no-one will understand, especially the umpires. I think it’ll be pretty difficult for defences to hold out the Gwestes’ attack using only their tiny latte hearts or their boofy bogan brains.

Then there is the coach himself: in contrast to previous supremo Johnno, Scotty is a canny operator who is well-known around the country for his tactical brilliance.

His adoption of the lethal ‘crane stance’ will serve the team well in Melbourne. Reports from training camp indicate that Scotty has also been putting a lot of emphasis on slowing down the play the ball, and this should provide plenty of opportunities for the Gigantor footifiers to implement their structures at the stoppage.

Of course, Gigantic premiership is far from a fait acccompli: there are other strong contenders from the title, such as the home team itself, the Demonised Melbourne Amateurs.

They are always a threat with their skilful basketball midfield and frequent stupidity. Their neighbours Collingwood will also be hard to beat due to their talented array of bogans and toothless.

And then of course there is the Cold Ghost Suns, which with a rapidly growing Mexican emigre class is set to become the next century’s footynomic powerhouse, wielding significant influence over the national political landscape, including footy.

But perhaps the biggest wildcard in this extremely wild pack is Port Adelaide Magpowers, which has a tradition of great footering stretching back through Smithy, Scotty, Johnno, and Smithy, and will be sure to be on a full-bogan in tribute to the spirit of racism that runs through the code.

So that’s phoody for you. It won’t be easy for the Enormities to win this one, but I think we can be pretty confident that as long as they all stay fit and healthy, keep a steady line and length, and kick the ball as hard as possible, come that one day in September skipper Johnny ‘Johnno’ Johnstone-Johnson will once again hold the ‘Auld Mug’ high above his head on the Victoria Park terraces.

But more importantly than that, even after the World Series is over, we diehard fans of the Sport of Kings will go on cheering week in, week out.

Good luck Gigantic Graters of Sydney!
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Qualifying is never easy: Australia’s World Cup history

June 11, 2014, 6:54 pm
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Roy Hay
Australia will soon begin its fourth football World Cup finals campaign – the third successive tournament it has qualified for – with group stage matches against Chile, the Netherlands and Spain.
While some more recent Australian football fans might now view qualification for the World Cup as something we can take for granted, Australia’s earlier adventures in attempting to gain access to the pinnacle of the world game prove it wasn’t always thus.
Australia began trying to qualify for the World Cup soon after its FIFA membership was restored in 1963. Australia had been suspended because local clubs were signing up overseas players such as Leo Baumgartner and Sjel de Bruyckere, claiming they were just migrants who had arrived here and only wanted a game of football. Their European clubs were not receiving transfer fees and complained to FIFA, which suspended Australia.
Australia’s first attempt to get to the World Cup – the 1966 tournament in England – was very disappointing. The Australian team prepared in Cairns with a match against Ingham, while their opponent, North Korea, had about 35 competitive games before the two-match play-off in Phnom Penh. Australia lost both encounters comprehensively, then played a series of matches in Asia to help defray the trip’s costs.
Later, Australia learned to play warm-up games before the main event, not afterwards.
In 1967, in the middle of the Vietnam War with prime minister Harold Holt under pressure at home, it was decided that Australia should play in the Independence Day tournament in Saigon. The idea was to help demonstrate the superiority of democracy and boost morale among service personnel and the domestic population.
A young team led by Johnny Warren and coached by “Uncle” Joe Vlasits found itself interacting with Australian troops who would then go off to fight while they played and beat New Zealand, South Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia en route to the final against South Korea. The Australians threatened not to take part after being informed that there was no space in the stadium for the Australian military personnel who had been a huge support to the players on and off the field.
As it turned out, the service personnel were allowed in and the rest of the crowd supported Australia rather than the Koreans, much to the Australians' surprise. South Korea scored in the first minute, but the Australians responded brilliantly. Billy Vojtek produced a wonderful solo goal after 36 minutes and Atti Abonyi and Warren added the others in a 3-2 win to register Australia’s first international tournament victory.
The camaraderie in the face of adversity was an important element in the mindset that eventually helped Australia qualify for the World Cup in West Germany in 1974.
Led by Rale Rasic, a bunch of part-time players, some of whom had to give up their employment to take part, qualified by beating South Korea in another play-off, this time in Hong Kong. Everyone remembers Jimmy Mackay’s fierce shot that won the decisive game, but fewer remember Jimmy Fraser’s performances in goal that helped get Australia to that point.
Highlights from Australia’s 1974 World Cup qualification campaign.
In the finals, Australia lost to East and West Germany and drew with Chile. Chile, coincidentally, will be Australia’s first opponent in the 2014 tournament, and another draw would be an excellent result. That match against Chile in 1974 was marked by the appearance of Harry Williams as a substitute late in the game, the first recognised Indigenous player to represent Australia at a FIFA World Cup.
In 2005, after a wait of more than three decades, Australia qualified for another World Cup in a now-united Germany. People asked me before the tournament: “Will we qualify for Germany?” I would reply: “We always qualify for the World Cup in Germany.”
After the excruciatingly narrow loss to Iran at the MCG in 1997 on the away goals rule, getting to Germany depended once again on a series of brilliant saves by goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, who has recently retired from international football, and a penalty kick by John Aloisi to defeat Uruguay.
A penalty shootout sent Australia to the 2006 World Cup.
The nation united behind the team. It is estimated that some 60,000 Australians followed them to Germany, the largest outward movement of population since World War Two. Many did not have tickets but enjoyed the tournament in the fan fests in all of the World Cup cities.
At home, thousands got up in the middle of the night to watch Australia on big screens in cities across the country. Australia beat Japan with three very late goals, lost to Brazil, but then drew with Croatia to qualify for the knockout stages. Only a late penalty to the eventual winner, Italy, brought the campaign to an end.
Australia has since qualified for South Africa in 2010 – where it went out in the group stages after a win, loss and draw – and the tournament in Brazil is now about to start. Bring it on.
Roy Hay and Bill Murray’s new book, A History of Football in Australia, is published by Hardie Grant.
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And by amazing co-incidence . . .

June 20, 2014, 6:25 pm
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Melbourne Soccer also 150 years old in 2020


The AFL might well be shifting the history goalposts once more and moving its origin date back from 1987 to 1870. Preparations seem underway already to celebrate another 150th (didn't we just have one?) in 2020. I guess that's the way the AFL rolls.

However, here's a little snippet from my research that suggests soccer may also have a coincidental anniversary.

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Of the Australian colonies in the period 1860–1880, Victoria was the one in which English Association rules seemed the least present. Aside from the occasional reported attempts to advocate the formation of a football association, soccer is absent in the received story of football in Melbourne until 1883. Given this absence, the following report of a game that seems a lot like soccer is somewhat tantalising.
An amusing game of football will be played on the Metropolitan ground, Yarra-park, this afternoon, between the local club and a team chosen from the ranks of the Victorian police force, who will play under the guidance of Mr J Conway, of the Carlton Club. The game will be played something after the home style, and holding or running with the ball will not be allowed.[i]
When the Police team and Melbourne FC (the 1870 AFL premiers in the newly rewritten version of footy history) were scheduled to have a match it was felt that major rule modifications were needed to give the police team a chance to be competitive. The Australasian reported that as a result the game was to be played under 'home rules' (using the more definitive ‘rules’ rather than ‘style’). It said, ‘In order to make the game as equal as possibly both teams will play according to the “home rules”, which provide that there shall be no holding or running with the ball.’[ii] 

The Argus match report followed two days later. The Melbourne team had proved too strong for the police, who struggled to cope despite the modifications. The match,
as was expected, was a most amusing affair, and attracted a large number of spectators to the metropolitan ground. The toss was won by the police, who elected to kick down the hill. With the view of equalising the chances of the teams, the rules of the Melbourne Club were slightly departed from, neither ‘marks,’ holding, nor running with the ball being allowed.[iii]
To work out just what this game might have looked like is difficult. The Melbourne Rules of the time need to be imagined with three crucial aspects missing. Players could handle the ball but they could not claim a mark, hold on to it or run with it. Most likely they needed to kick it quickly after catching it to avoid being pummelled.

The notions of the ‘home style’ and ‘home rules’ are intriguing. The various prohibitions and the (presumed) absence of offside rule out Rugby and the public school games. The absence of offside would also rule out Association football as codified in 1863. If anything the ‘home’ game they most closely resemble is the football of the Sheffield rules (a game which is formative in the development of soccer) – though it too allowed a mark.

Ultimately it cannot yet be said one way or the other if this is a very early example of a soccer-derived game being played in Australia. Despite its being a close relative, nor can this modified game be claimed as an immediate progenitor of Australian soccer.

But the point that should also be made is that the game bears little resemblance to the written Melbourne Rules of the time and virtually no likeness to Australian rules as played today. Then again the Melbourne Rules of the time bear little resemblance to Australian rules of today either, which begs the question of when Australian Rules football actually began. The myth says 1858/1859. The principles that form the basis of a code – established and relatively stable rules agreed and conformed to by an associated community of clubs – says 1877, at the earliest.

The 1870 Melbourne v Police game lies under erasure, unbelonging in our football history. Too difficult to categorise. And still too easy to ignore.



[i]Argus,9 July 1870, 4.
[ii] Australasian, 9 July 1870, 11.
[iii]Argus,11 July 1870, 5.
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Australian Soccer: Must We Always Forget the Past?

June 26, 2014, 10:58 pm
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It is a given that the broader Australian culture cares little for the positive memorialisation of soccer. Yet the game itself is not much better at asserting its own legitimacy or remembering its own belonging. Forgetting the game’s history seems, at times, to be an imperative for soccer authorities. The transitions between significant stages of the game’s history in Australia are moments in which deliberate erasure and voluntary amnesia have seemed to be vital strategies.
The rebadging of the game as soccer in the 1920s threw off the ‘British’ name in an attempt to both domesticate and internationalise Association football in Australia. Even though still heavily reliant on migration from Britain, an amateur and domestically Australian-Anglo-Celtic culture emerged from the English and Scottish roots.
After the Second World War the rise to dominance of the continental European migrant clubs (and a concomitant emergence of professionalism) enabled the forgetting of that pre-war culture. For many today, soccer in Australia only really started in the 1950s. And many of the ‘ethnic’ clubs are guilty of ‘failing’ to remember their own history of supplanting a previous culture. South Melbourne Hellas is a case in point. A complex history of mergers between Australian-Anglo, Jewish and Greek clubs is lost in the club’s contemporary Greek-Australian identity.
The most recent act of substantial and brutal forgetting came in 2004 with the establishment of the FFA and the A-League, led by Frank Lowy and underpinned by the Crawford Report which advocated substantial and important changes to the constitution and management of the game. A policy of not just forgetting but also rejecting the game’s past was adopted largely because the new soccer authorities believed in the unassailability of the dominant myths, ones that are still in need of dismantling.
In the perceived absence of a sustained and convincing counter-narrative of soccer’s centrality to Australian culture, history became a no-go zone. Indeed the rejection of history was manifested in a 2006 World Cup advertising campaign expressing the Socceroos’ intentions to play well above the level of the national team’s historic mediocrity. Even if not intended, local history was a victim of the campaign and the powerfully significant contribution of the ethnic European clubs was forgotten in the blaze of negative memories of all that was ‘wrong’ with ‘wogball’.
When the Socceroos beat Uruguay on penalties in November 2005 they did more than fulfil a long-cherished dream of almost all Australian soccer supporters to participate again in the World Cup. The result also seemed effectively to justify, first, the decisions made about the changing of the game’s ethnic identity and, second, the obliteration of the many positive things that had come from the wogball period and the eighty years before that.
Yet a review of the names of the scorers in that penalty shootout enables a profoundly beautiful realisation to emerge. Kewell, Neill, Vidmar, Viduka, Aloisi: individual players representing and embodying a progression of waves of Australian immigration: English, Irish, Slovenian, Croatian, Italian. Add the names of the crucial game-time goal-scorer Bresciano and the goalkeeper Schwarzer, responsible for two heroic shootout saves, and the multicultural diversity of Australian soccer is revealed in all its power and glory. And that is something worth remembering.
The internal denial of history is an ongoing and crippling problem for Australian soccer. The game’s millions of stakeholders deserve to believe that there are reasons for optimism that the game’s profound lack of self-belief and feelings of illegitimacy and unbelonging can be turned around at both national and state level. Denying the contribution of wogball past and present is simply no way encourage that belief.
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Hobart Football 1877-1879

June 29, 2014, 11:23 pm
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Notes taken Monday 24 May 2010 at State library of Tasmania.

These are the notes I took and a table I drew up after visiting the library. I think that I recorded nearly all of the football games reported on in Hobart in the 1877–79 period.

Newspapers in Hobart (not incl Mercury) during that time
1877–79 Tasmanian Tribune, Tasmanian Mail
1879 Evening Star

I went through and listed all the games of football I could find in the randomly chosen Tasmanian Mail (a weekly published on Saturday). I also noted any peculiar or interesting information. The list is not completely thorough and the holding needs revisiting.

Tasmanian Mail (nb reports are on matches played the previous Saturday – unless noted otherwise)


Date of article
Date of game
Page
Game
Code (if indicated)
Score
Notes
4 Aug 1877

18
New Town v High School

1-0

1 Sep 1877

19
New Town v High School

0-10

1 Sep 1877

19
Richmond v City

0-0
‘It is only fair to say that they [City] were at a great disadvantage in having to make the great concession to their opponents of not “running with the ball.”’
[Richmond at this time play a non-running game.]
8 Sep 1877

18
Junior High v Hutchins School

17-0
Played previous Wednesday. Supposed to be U14 but HS had a number of over age players
8 Sep 1877

18
CitySchool v City Club juniors

2-4
Football seems to peter out in September
11 May 1878

18
City FC scratch match


Played at Sandy Bay. Several goals kicked.
18 May 1878

17
City v CitySchool


Poor turnout
1 June 1878

18



Report on the death of an English footballer in England.
8 June 1878

18
City snr v City Jr

5-1
11 v 16
15 Jun 1878

18
City v High School

5-0
First game of season
15 Jun 1878

18



Report on England v Scotland FA match – notable because of the way the description of the game differs from the local description.
22 June 1878

17
City v CollegiateSchool

7-1
Supplemented by a long piece on football controversy in Adelaide.
29 June 1878

19
City v Richmond

2-1
‘The Richmond team were evidently placed at a disadvantage by the novelty of the mark rule of which they made acquaintance for the first time.’
[We can conclude from this that Richmond play a non-running, non-marking game at this time – or that their mark is from another code]
20 July  1878

18
Lawyers & Merchants v Civil Servants & Bankers
Refs to “little marking” and drop kicking.
3-1
Played at Mr Butler’s Ground.
Wales v Scotland FA report supplements.
20 July 1878

18



Report on England v Scotland FA match
27 July 1878

18
CitySchool v New Town

2-0

27 July 1878

18
High school 3rd form v High School 2nd form

4-2
12 v 25
10 Aug 1878

17
City jr v HutchinsSchool
Refs to “carrying”
3-2
On Butler’s ground
17 Aug 1878

17
City v High School

3-1
“City v Richmond to be played this day.”
24 Aug 1878

17
Richmond v City
Playing the mark
0-1
By ‘Old Harrovian’. Announces games to come:
City jr v Hutchins Aug 25
Fancy Costume match Sep 7
31 Aug 1878

18
Hutchins v City jr

2-0

31 Aug 1878

18
Richmond Jr v Tea Tree

7-0

31 Aug 1878

18
Launceston v HortonCollege

1-0
Played in Ross: “The first football match that has ever been played in the township.”
7 Sep 1878

18
City jr v HutchinsSchool

4-2

14 Sep 1878

17
Civil Servants & Bankers v Lawyers & Merchants

2-0

14 Sep 1878

17
Richmond v Oatlands

0-1

21 Sep 1878

17
New Town v CitySchool

2-0

21 Sep 1878

17
Costume football match



Mercury
28 April 1879

2

Soccer +

City Club
“The committee recommended the adoption of a fresh code of playing rules, as the present code entirely prevented the club from meeting any foreign team, recommending those of the English Football Association, with the addition of the drop kick.
Captain Boddam was appointed captain!!
10 May 1879


19



City Club receives a request from Hotham to play in Tasmania.
“Such an attention . . . from Victoria will demonstrate the necessity for the formation of an Association, uniformity of rules . . .
The article suggests that rancour exits between the Hobart clubs formed.
The Cricketers’ Football Club at their May 5 meeting adopted the English Association Rules. The vote was 10-9! Boddam and seconder preferred Rugby but realised the rules were too ‘complex’. [suggesting their motives are imperialist]. They were derisory in relation to Victorian Rules.
New Town FC adopted VR with some modifications [indeed!]
17 May 1879

18



Railway Club adopts VR – but confusions reigns
Railway, City – VR
New Town – modified VR
Cricketers – EAR
24 May 1879

19
New Town v High School

1-1
Opening game of season. Also – Mercury Club emerges. Reference to “Locomotives” [ahh Locomotiv Glenorchy – if only!]
31 May 1879

19
New Town v Cricketers
modified VR
spherical ball
5-1
“hybred character of the New Town game, which while allowing handling the ball, prohibits it being carried so that a player catching the ball, must stand positively to be knocked down by an opponent charging him, for if he moves a yard to dodge him, a “free kick” is the penalty”.  The writer is scathing about the rules which he sees as a mockery of the Victorian game.
City Club “maintain their in cognito” and play a scratch match.
31 May 1879

19
HichSchool v Railway

1-1

7 June 1879

19
New Town v City
Oval ball
2-2
Clashed on rules
7 June 1879

19
City jr v CitySchool

3-0
Railway scratch.
14 June 1879

19
Railway v City

1-0

14 June 1879

19
Cricketers v New Town
Soccer
0-0
“Morriss for the New Town causing special amusement by playing the ball with his head.”
The writer complains of the ‘absurdity’ of the keeper being allowed to throw the ball.
21 June 1879

19
City v High School

1-3

21 June 1879


New Town v Hutchins

1-2
8 v 9
21 June 1879


Mercury Juniors v Battery Point Public School

2-0

21 June 1879

19
Oatlands v N Richmond
CNA
0-2

21 June 1879

19



Report on the first meeting of the Association on June 12 – where VR are adopted with one or two exceptions – one of which is a crossbar over which the ball must pass.
The writer argues that Tasmanian Rules has emerged – a “hodge podge of the Rugby Union, English, and Victorian Rules”.
The executive decided after the meeting to add the crossbar! Accusations of the committee being a “Star Chamber”
28 June 1879

19
Cricketers v Railway
Cross bar uniform
1-0

28 June 1879


City v New Town

1-0

28 June 1879


Battery Point PS  v Mercury Juniors

2-1

5 July 1879

19
New Town v Cricketers

4-1
Boddam scored for the cricketers.
Notice that Launceston will play Richmond in mid July.
12 July 1879

19
Railway v City

1-2

12 July 1879


Cricketers v Richmond

0-0

12 July 1879


Longford v Launceston

1-4

19 July 1879

19
City v Cricketers

0-1
Unclear whether the ball is a “sphere” or an “oval”
19 July 1879


Railway v New Town

1-1

19 July 1879


Richmond v Launceston

1-0

26 July  1879

18
Cricketers v Railway

1-2

26 July  1879


New Town v City

1-1
New Town may have won. The report is contradictory.
2 Aug 1879

19
Yachy Club v Rowing Club
“new rules”
0-1

2 Aug 1879


City jr v Railway jr

3-0

2 Aug 1879


New Town jr v Hutchins School

1-2

9 Aug 1879

18
Hutchins School v High School

12-0

9 Aug 1879


City jr v City School

0-0

9 Aug 1879


Oatlands v City

1-2

16 Aug 1879

18
Richmond v City

1-2

16 Aug 1879


Railway v High School

2-1

16 Aug 1879


Mercury jr v Battery Point

2-2

23 Aug 1879

18
Railway v Launceston

0-0

23 Aug 1879


High School v City

0-2

23 Aug 1879


Hutchins School v City jr

3-0

23 Aug 1879


Mercury v Trinity Scholars

2-1

30 Aug 1879

19
Cricketers v Railway


5-1

Notice of
New Norfolk v Railway Aug 30
Hutchins v Ross (????) Sep 6
30 Aug 1879


New Town v City

2-2

30 Aug 1879


Mercury jr v Tribune jr

2-0

6 Sep 1879

17
New Norfolk v Railway

0-10

13 Sep 1879

19
New Town v Railway

4-0

13 Sep 1879


City v Oatland

1-0

13 Sep 1879


Horton v Hutchins

2-2
Played in Ross
20 Sep 1879

19
Launceston v Cricketers 13th

0-2
Notice of end-of-season game, Tasmanians v All-Comers on 27th.
20 Sep 1879


Launceston v Richmond 12th

0-2

27 Sep 1879

19
High School v City


1-0


27 Sep 1879


Horton v Ross School

14-0

4 Oct 1879

19
Tasmanians v All-Comers

3-0
4000 present at Battery Ground. Tas won.
Notice of a game, Longford v All-Comers.
[note to self that entire report is worth copying – can’t quite remember why – perhaps that it summarised the year and layed out plans for the future]
11 Oct 1879

20
Railway v All comers

4-1

Mercury, 29 September 1879

3



[This is noted as a summary to the three years previous]

Mr. GIBLIN proposed the toast of the evening, "Success to the Tasmanian Football Association." (Loud and prolonged cheers.) There was not the least doubt that the game of football had taken such a hold of the young men of Hobart Town that season such as none of them could remember before. (Hear, hear.) It was a grand winter game. Many of them loved cricket with an intense love, but in our climate cricket could not be played all the year round, and there was no game to be comparedto the manly old English game of football. (Cheers.)

[I’m struck that even after all the shenanigans that they see themselves as playing an English game.]
May 15 1880

19
Railway v High School

1-6

May 22 1880

19
Cricketers v City

1-0
Cricketers captained by George Bailey!!
May 22 1880

19
New Norfolk v Railway

0-1

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Search

Hobart Football Grounds, 1866-1912

June 29, 2014, 11:29 pm
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List of grounds in Hobart football

These grounds are taken verbatim from news articles at the time so as to capture the changing usage of names and ownership. The post 1898 ground are soccer grounds.


Year
Name
information
1866
Domain


Government Domain


Southern Tasmanian Cricket Club Ground

187? - 78
Butler’s paddock
The Mercury Monday 29 September 1879 page 3
Mr. Leitch stated that lt was the establishment of the Australian code, which was then known as the Victorian rules, that first led to the inauguration of North and South matches. Prior to the Australian code being adopted in Hobart there were two forms of Rugby played, the principal ground being Butler's paddock, at the corner at what is known as Hampden Road and Montpelier Road.
1878
Butler’s Ground

1879
The Domain


New Town


The Association Ground
Cricket

The Battery Ground
Queen’s Domain

Lower cricket ground


Mr McFarlane’s Paddock


Marsh’s Ground
Newtown

Canvey’s Hotel
Richmond

“the slope near the battery”


Jerusalem


Lower Cricket Ground
“The scene of the encounter was the lower cricket ground – the narrow strip at the eastern side which has been used by the City Club throughout the season under the government grant.”
1898
New Town Showground

1902
Victoria Sports Ground
New Town
1908
New Norfolk
“The green at New Norfolk”

North Hobart Recreation Ground


Arthur Square Reserve
New Norfolk

Suburban Sports Ground
New Town

Elwick Junction


South Hobart Recreation Ground

1909
Elwick


The Clare St Ground

1910
The association’s ground
South Hobart
1912
South Hobart Ground


Lindisfarne


Cornelian Bay

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The Heavy Sleeper's World Cup Reviews

July 10, 2014, 7:08 pm
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NPL VIC Round 17/16

July 13, 2014, 6:58 pm
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NPL :

ROUND 17: 

  1. Bentleigh Greens SC 4 (D. Stirton 3, W. Wallace 1) Werribee City FC 0 (HT: 2-0)  , 
  2. Ballarat Red Devils SC 5 (P. Harvey 2, S. Murphy 1, S. Harding 1, D. O'Donnell 1) Heidelberg United SC 5 (D. Heffernan 2, D. Vasilevski 2, J. Williams 1) (HT: 2-2)  , 
  3. Green Gully SC 1 (O. Ederaro 1) Oakleigh Cannons FC 5 (D. Piemonte 3, G. Zoric 1, D. Bosnjak 1) (HT: 1-2)  , 
  4. Port Melbourne Sharks SC 1 (L. Prelevic 1) Goulburn Valley Suns FC 0 (HT: 0-0)  , 
  5. Northcote City FC 1 (W. Dekker 1) Pascoe Vale SC 1 (L. Santilli 1) (HT: 1-1) 


NPL1:

ROUND 16: 

  1. Richmond SC Seniors  5 (T. Cahill 4, A. Quinn 1) FC Bulleen Lions 2 (J. Katebian 2) (HT: 1-0)
  2. Whittlesea Ranges FC 1 (T. Trbuhovich 1) Sunshine George Cross SC 1 (M. Sadik 1) (HT: 0-0) 
  3. Dandenong City SC 0 Box Hill United SC 0 (HT: 0-0)
  4. North Geelong Warriors FC 3 (J. Julardzija 2, M. Paleka 1) Springvale White Eagles FC 2 (V. Milojevic 2) (HT: 3-0)
  5. Brunswick City SC 1 Avondale Heights SC 2 (D. Campelj 1) (HT: 0-2)
  6. St Albans Saints SC 1 Kingston City FC 1 (M. Etheridge 1) (HT: 1-1)
  7. Moreland Zebras FC  FC Bendigo (HT: 0-0) (Washed Out)



TABLES

NPL

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   South Melbourne FC              16      14      1       1       35      12      23      43     
2   Oakleigh Cannons FC            17      12      1       4       43      11      32      40     
3   Heidelberg United SC             17      9       4       4       46      28      18      31     
4   Bentleigh Greens SC               16      9       4       3       32      20      12      30     
5   Hume City FC                        16      8       7       1       23      21      2       25     
6   Pascoe Vale SC                      17      6       6       5       21      20      1       23     
7   Northcote City FC                  17      6       7       4       26      29      -3      22     
8   Green Gully SC                       17      7       9       1       32      36      -4      22     
9   Dandenong Thunder SC          16      6       7       3       22      33      -11     21     
10  Melbourne Knights FC           16      6       9       1       22      23      -1      19     
11  Port Melbourne Sharks SC    17      5       9       3       24      34      -10     18     
12  Werribee City FC                  17      5       10      2       20      36      -16     17     
13  Ballarat Red Devils SC           16      4       10      2       28      39      -11     14     
14  Goulburn Valley Suns FC        17      1       14      2       15      47      -32     5      


NPL1

Pos Team                                    P       W       L       D       F       A       GD      PTS    

1   Avondale Heights SC                16      14      1       1       38      15      23      43     
2   FC Bulleen Lions                      16      8       4       4       40      27      13      28     
3   Richmond SC Seniors               15      9       5       1       33      27      6       28     
4   Box Hill United SC                   16      8       5       3       29      15      14      27     
5   North Geelong Warriors FC     15      8       6       1       33      21      12      25     
6   St Albans Saints SC                  16      8       5       3       27      21      6       24     
7   Sunshine George Cross SC       16      7       6       3       28      33      -5      24     
8   Moreland Zebras FC                 15      7       7       1       27      22      5       22     
9   Kingston City FC                       16      6       8       2       34      30      4       20     
10  FC Bendigo                              15      5       8       2       26      31      -5      17     
11  Dandenong City SC                  16      4       7       5       27      33      -6      17     
12  Springvale White Eagles FC      16      5       9       2       30      39      -9      17     
13  Whittlesea Ranges FC               16      4       9       3       25      41      -16     15     
14  Brunswick City SC                    16      1       14      1       16      58      -42     4      


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Multicultural Round, or "Spot the Wog"

July 13, 2014, 7:02 pm
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This article appeared first in the Age as "A multicultural AFL? Not quite"13 July 2013.
A year on and it's just as fresh. I've tweaked it to reflect 2014 figures published by the AFL.

Someone needs to call the AFL out on this one. As if we don’t have enough ‘noble work’ rounds already, we are this week lumbered with the most ludicrously framed of them all, Multicultural Round. The only round more silly would be the one that celebrated the game’s great Barrys.

Now I’m not against the idea of celebrating cultural diversity in any arena. More power to those who want to remind us that we live in a diverse and multicultural society. But if anyone in the AFL bothered to think deeply for even a moment about the motivations of the Multicultural Round they would run a mile.
Are these the face of multicultural AFL footy:
a Wallaby and a bloke they don't understand?

Unfortunately, the AFL does not have all that much to celebrate in terms of its cultural diversity – yet. While the AFL Diversity website claims that “Australian football has the extraordinary power to bring people together regardless of their background,” the proof of the pudding is just not there. For example, the AFL concedes that of the 811 listed AFL players, only 25 were born overseas, around 3 per cent. This can be compared with the general Australian population in which 25 per cent were born overseas.

Perhaps it could be argued that AFL figures are not representative of the game as a whole. This may be the case but would then be an indictment of the development pathways available for the non-Australian born. Moreover, footy has had many years to integrate the overseas born as elite players and has failed to do so. It's not as if substantial numbers of migrants have only just recently popped up on our shores. Since 1970 the non-Australian born have represented over 20 per cent of the Australian population. The lowest figure since 1890 is about 10 per cent in the immediate post-Second-World-war years.


The AFL claims a higher figure in relation to those of a “Multicultural background”. About 14% (down from 15% in 2013) of listed players fit the AFL’s Multicultural criteria of having at least one parent born overseas. So the AFL falls down here as well, with over 45 per cent of the Australian population fitting this criterion.

When we look more closely at the AFL's figures, further problems appear. The AFL Diversity website lists 112 'Multicultural' players (down from 121 in 2013 and 118 in 2012), carefully noting their parents' country of origin. Of the 112, over one-half have one parent from Anglophone countries, mainly Britain, Ireland and New Zealand. The evidence suggests that only 10 of the 811 listed players are from non-Anglophone families. Steele Sidebottom, born in Australia to an Australian father and English mother does not strike me as a significant embodiment of cultural diversity. And the idea that Simon Black’s Kiwi father makes him somehow ‘multicultural’ borders on the perverse. From the list of past multicultural players: Dermot Brereton? Really?

Bizarrely, this definition would allow most of the game’s Anglo-Australian founders to be described as Multicultural and eligible for selection in the all-time Multicultural Australian rules team.

Yet this construction of multicultural identity is not universally applied in the AFL’s thinking. Fourth generation Australian Ron Barrasi is included in an historical list of Multicultural players. There’s a tokenism here that cares more about the woggy surname than it does about the realities and differences of Italian-Australian culture. It’s all just a bit silly.

Actually it isn’t just silly. It’s also pernicious. The problem with all of this lies in the construction of a ‘Multicultural’ identity as opposed to another (true blue?) identity. The diversity gurus at the AFL seem to think that in breaking Australian society into two categories (insiders and outsiders, native-born and migrants, or Australians and multiculturals?) they are doing us a favour when in fact they are replicating the kind of Hansonite stereotypes that gave us Cronulla. When Eddie McGuire makes stupid comments about the “Felafel Land” of Western Sydney or Kevin Sheedy reveals his ignorance in talking about the immigration department supplying supporters for the Western Sydney Wanderers, they articulate the AFL’s failure to understand the social fissures encouraged by this false division between ‘real’ and ‘wannabee’ Aussies.

The bottom line is that in a multicultural society we are ALL multicultural. We all have ethnic and cultural baggage that sets us up in relation to the fluid process that we call multicultural Australia. We are all in it together and none of the imported cultures deserve the priority that is the privilege of the truly indigenous.

The AFL is to be congratulated for recognising and using its great social clout for good in relation to any number of issues. The way the AFL has supported indigenous players in their struggle to be recognised as powerful and legitimate contributors to the game is one of our great sport stories of recent times. It should also be supported for acknowledging that it is not a particularly diverse sport and taking steps to correct that.

But I’ll be buggered if I am going to pat them on the back for playing catch-up football in relation to the vital issue of cultural diversity. Let me know when the siren sounds on this game because I reckon we have a while to go. Meanwhile I’m off to a game this weekend that, for all its faults - and despite the FFA's attempts to limit the appearance and reality of diversity - is so culturally diverse that to play “Spot the Wog” would be redundant. I’ll leave that to the AFL.

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Soccer in Otago 1875

July 24, 2014, 3:36 pm
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Recorded games of soccer in NZ are a little earlier than those in Australia. This is from Otago in 1875.
FOOTBALL.
The third football match this season took place at the South Recreation Ground, on Saturday afternoon, when the sun shone out beautifully. The Oval, however, was rather wet, from the recent showers. The sides, each numbering ten, were captained by Messrs A, K. Smith and H. Rose. The former won the toss, and chose the western goal, commencing play with a capital kick from touch. After an hour's vigorous contest, the second goal of the season fell to the same player (H. Rose), who had the honour of scoring the first. He impelled the ball along capitally for some distance. Two other goals were obtained by Rose's side, one being spiritedly taken by Sampson before time was called, at 4.45 p.m. Smith's side was doubtless much the weaker of the two. The English Football Association Rules, as determined in February, 1867, allow no hacking, knocking over, or tripping. They have been revised, printed, and distributed amongst the members of the local club, and therefore it is scarcely probable that accidents will happen. Of course courage, and a disregard of the chance of a little danger, are required to make an efficient player. We adhere to our former opinion that, when possible, an umpire should be appointed. 
Otago Witness 22 May 1875 Page 16

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